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.. 715 


II! Clark Russell 


50 Cent 


red at the Post-Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter. Issued Monthly. Subscription Price per Year, 12 Nos., $7.50. 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS 


^ JHft~2Ulantic Romance 


BY 

W. CLARK RUSSELL 

AUTHOR OF U AN OCEAN TRAGEDY” “ THE WRECK OF THE ‘ GROSVENOR ’ ” 
“ MY DANISH SWEETHEART ” “ A SAILOR’S SWEETHEART ” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

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January, 1892 


HARPER'S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY-LATEST ISSl 


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“ONE OF THE FIGURES IN THE BOAT EXTENDED HIS HANDS .” — {Seepage 112, 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS 


B /BMC>=Htlantic IRontance 


BY 


J 


V 

W. CLARK RUSSELL 


5 < 

AUTHOR OF 


“ AN OCEAN TRAGEDY ” “ THE WRECK OF THE ‘ GROSVENOR ’ ” 

“MY DANISH SWEETHEART” “a SAILOR’S SWEETHEART” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 


1892 



W. CLARK RUSSELL’S SEA STORIES. 


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IN THE MIDDLE WATCH. 16mo, Paper, 25 cents. 

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Copyright, 1891. by Harper & Brothers. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGE 


I. 

THE 

“ SOUTHERN 

cross” 

HAULS OUT 

OF DOCK 

II. 

THE 

PASSENGERS 

OF 

THE 

a 

SOUTHERN 

CROSS ” 

III. 

CAPTAIN SPARSHOT “ 

TAKES 

sights” 

• • • 


IV. A LESSON IN NAVIGATION 40 

V. OFF FUNCHAL 55 

VI. A FRESH START 69 

VII. KEEPING COMPANY 81 

VIII. A QUIET NIGHT 93 

IX. “IN THE MIDDLE WATCH ” 104 

x. sparshot’s SAFE • 118 

xi. s.s. “ sunflower” 129 

XII. CAPTAIN brine’s REWARD ......... 148 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


“one of the figures in the boat extended his hands.” . Frontispiece 
“descended the steps to help the stout lady.” . . Faces page 10 


“she lifted the yeil and disclosed her face.” ... “ 14 

“‘you see what that vulgar woman is aiming at?’” “ 78 

“in an instant a brilliant blood -red stream of fire 

WAS POURING FROM THE MOUTH OF THE TUBE.” . . “ 98 

‘“DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I HAVE LOST THEM DIAMONDS 

FOR GOOD ?’ ” “ 130 

“ ‘ HE HAS KILLED HIMSELF !’ ” “ 144 

“SHE WENT ASHORE.” “ 158 



. 











































































/ 



















































Mrs. DINES’S JEWELS. 


A MID-ATLANTIC ROMANCE. 


Advance, Australia! — At the recent sale of valuable 
jewelry, to which we referred in our issue of yesterday, the 
golden fern-branch, with a lizard, lady-bird, and a snail upon 
it (said to have been worn by Queen Elizabeth), was sold to 

Mr. Croker, acting, it is understood, for the Earl of , for 

the price of seven hundred guineas. Other costly historic 
knick-knacks, such as a golden frog set with jewels, a chain 
of golden scallop shells with chains of agate and jet, fetched 
extraordinary prices. Great interest was exhibited in the 
bids for the magnificent diamond necklace, remarkable for 
its large central stone, known as the “Light of the Age,” 
which was ultimately sold to Mrs. E. F. Dines for the enor- 
mous sum of £22,750. Mrs. Dines is the wife of a million- 
aire Australian squatter, resident in Sydney, New South Wales. 
We understand she is making the “round voyage ” — as it is 
called — from Australia to England and back again, for her 
health. But a further purpose of her journey is indicated by 
the above purchase, and by others which chiefly comprise 
pictures and old engravings. Mrs. Dines sails in that well- 
v known Australian liner, the Southern Cross , in the course of 
a few weeks. — The Sun , Friday, August 12, 185-. 

1 


CHAPTER I. 


THE “ SOUTHERN CROSS 55 HAULS OUT OF DOCK. 

On the 24th of October, in the year 185-, a large, 
handsome ship hauled out of the East India Docks. 
The words “ Southern Gross , London ,” were painted in 
white letters upon the counter under her cabin win- 
dows. She floated deep, for she was freighted with a 
valuable cargo for a city in the far Pacific. 

A ship hauling out of dock, outward bound on a 
long voyage, is a sight full of interest and excitement. 
Her movements are slow; she gives the mind plenty 
of leisure to observe what is passing. It is very differ- 
ent with a steamer ; for with her it is but the letting 
go of the shore fasts, and the ringing of the engine- 
room bell, whereupon the great metal structure trem- 
bles from stem to stern to the first motions of the en- 
gines, as though, like something living, she fetched her 
deepest breath for the start; the propeller revolves, 
and, in a few moments, the whole floating mass, that 
may be as big as an island, is off and away, with 
hushed decks and a twinkling figure or two pacing 
the bridge. 

But the hauling of a sailing ship out of dock involves 
a great deal of pulling and dragging, of shouting and 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


3 


swearing; .there is much melancholy chorusing of 
drunken throats winding round capstans on legs 
atwist, like corkscrews, with drink. It generally hap- 
pens that an intoxicated seaman falls overboard in 
attempting to leap into the ship from the pier-head, 
and the vessel is delayed while he is being fished for. 
Drunken sailors come staggering along in a small 
drove, urged by the Hebrew crimp, whose chimney-pot 
hat is radiant with the grease with which he anoints 
his ringlets. This, at least, is as it used to be. We 
are now content with pier-head jumps, and the runner 
is forced by the statute to- watch from afar. 

There was some confusion as the Southern Cross 
hauled out of the East India Dock. The saloon pas- 
sengers would embark at Gravesend, but some thirty 
or forty steerage folk had arrived on the preceding 
evening ; they filled the quarter-deck and waist. The 
whistling of the wind blowing over the Isle of Dogs 
into the thick and complicated rigging of the ship was 
vocal with the crying of babies, with the lamentations 
of women, waving, with streaming eyes, to people 
ashore ; with the maudlin laughter of inebriated Jacks, 
the shouts of dock officials, the responsive bawling of 
mud pilot and mates, and with the cries to and from 
a tug manoeuvring just clear of the pier-heads. 

Presently the ship had floated clear of the docks, 
and was showing her broadside to the spectators on 
shore, with the tug slowly steaming ahead to bring 
the hawser taut. One nowhere sees the like of such a 


4 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


ship as the Southern Cross in these days. You might 
as well seek for a Symondite Vernon, or such a beau- 
ty as the old auxiliary Imjoerieuse; you might as well 
hunt the waters for a sight of Blackwood’s Euryalus 
under a full breast of sail, as search the docks or the 
ocean for another Southern Cross . It is all iron now ; 
it was nearly all wood then : timber moulded into 
shapes of frigate-like beauty. The Southern Cross had 
glistening stern windows; she was plentifully deco- 
rated with gilt about the quarters and at the stem- 
head, and, Us she lay upon the smooth surface of the 
dark gray river, the water at either extremity of her 
blushed with light. But you needed the distance of 
the horizon to mistake her for a man-of-war, spite of 
her row of painted ports and her large and heavy 
tops and the defiant posture with which she had been 
made to sit upon the water by the stevedore. You 
heard cocks crowing aboard, you smelt the delicate 
odor of compressed hay; you caught the mournful 
lowing of a cow, the grunt of hogs, the noise of sheep 
and turkeys. Then, again, on board a frigate you 
would not expect to see drunken sailors reeling from 
rail to rail, flinging their caps overboard, and vocif- 
erating messages to Sal and Sue; such a sight you 
would not expect to witness on the forecastle of a 
man-of-war. 

It was late in October. The autumn chill w r as in 
the air, and the cold seemed the keener for the gray 
sky and for the sloppy, soup-like swirl of the broad 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


5 


and dirty river, whose stream of tide was making 
oceanward; and the colder, too, did the morning 
seem for the leave-taking — the eternal leave-taking 
of many — which the sight of that tall, heavily-rigged, 
outward-bound ship suggested. Surely one feels that 
the North Pole must be nearer to England than most 
Arctic explorers imagine, when one stands upon the 
deck of an outward-bound ship on a chilly autumn 
morning, and views the grimy banks of Thames steal- 
ing slowly past, and listens to the sound of the 
weeping of women rising up from the quarter- 
deck, and to the hissing noise of foam seething into 
the ship’s wake as it falls in hills of snow from 
the revolving wheels of the tug, which is dragging 
one away from home, and from all that home signi- 
fies. 

The Southern Cross proceeded down the river in 
the wake of the tug, gliding slowly through the many 
bends which make a very serpent of the Thames from 
St. Katherine’s Dock to Sea Reach. The river thirty 
odd years ago was not as it now is; but what it 
lacked of the majesty it now possesses it supplied by 
a vast variety of picturesque and romantic detail. 
There were no huge ocean steamers lifting bows as 
high as cliffs over the water of the river, with sides 
discolored by oceanic conflict, and with more passen- 
gers between the rails than would go to the popula- 
tion of a considerable village; there were no long 
metal sailing craft, carrying four masts, with hulls ly- 


6 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


ing flat as planks upon the water, levelling a compli- 
cation of yards at the heavens, with boats’ davits for 
catheads, a bridge for a quarter-deck, and a donkey 
engine to get the anchor with ; but the marine pro- 
cessions, nevertheless, thirty odd years ago, were full- 
er of color, were out and away more vital with the 
true marine qualities than they are now. As the 
Southern Cross floated astern of the tug through the 
back -wash of the paddles, her steerage passengers 
found many things to look at, to point to, to raise ex- 
clamations of wonder over. It might be a Gravesend 
steamer, with tall funnel, merrily slapping the water 
with her paddles as she pushed past with a purple- 
faced man motioning with one arm on her paddle- 
box, and a little company of men and women eating 
sandwiches and drinking bottled beer round about 
the companion that conducted into the gloomy, close- 
smelling cabin. It might be a gaunt collier, stagger- 
ing under dark and well-patched canvas from bank to 
bank as she reeled athwart her road with her yards 
fore and aft ; her crew of five men and a boy — the 
skipper at the tiller — waiting for the next howl of 
“Ready about!” their hands in their pockets, and 
their teeth showing like a nigger’s in their blackened 
faces as they grinned at the passing show. In the 
span of a single Reach there would be a score of dif- 
ferent types of sailing craft to be seen, on that chilly 
October morning more than thirty years ago, when 
the well-known Australian liner, the Southern Cross , 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


7 


was towing down the river for a mooring buoy off 
Gravesend. 

Long before she was off the town a calm had set- 
tled upon her decks. The drunken sailors had been 
tumbled below into their forecastle, and lay there 
snorting in many postures. Those who were sober 
moved about decorously, doing such ship’s work as 
was needed. The “ mud pilot ” stood on the forecas- 
tle head ready to shout directions to the tug, and the 
first and second officers paced the after part of the 
vessel, called the poop, keeping a bright lookout on 
the two fellows at the wheel, that the pilot’s orders to 
the helm might be promptly executed. 

It was not until the big ship had swung to her 
mooring buoy, and was lying at rest off the town of 
Gravesend, with the tug close at hand ready to catch 
hold of the vessel’s hawser afresh in the morning and 
tow her clear of the South Foreland, that the Captain 
came on deck. He stepped up the ladder that led 
from the saloon, and stood for some moments looking 
about him ; and, first of all, he sent his gaze aloft, for 
the immediate instinct of the master of a sailing ves- 
sel is to take a view of his spars ; he then looked over 
the side into the water, to observe if there were any 
boats under the gangway; and then crossing the 
deck, he raised a binocular-glass to his eyes, and stead- 
fastly surveyed that part of Gravesend where the pier 
stands, and where, thirty odd years ago, the boats of 
the Gravesend watermen bobbed and jerked in clusters. 


8 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


“ Here come some of them !” he said to himself, af- 
ter a brief spell of staring through his binocular, and, 
walking to the forward end of the poop, he descended 
the flight of steps which terminated on the quarter- 
deck, and took up a position at the open gangway, 
first peering through it to observe that the accommo- 
dation ladder was at the side. 

The master of the Southern Cross was named Spar- 
shot. He was a square, short man, with little blue 
eyes, and an expression of countenance that seemed 
to flutter and hover on the very brink of a smile. It 
was not hard to guess that he was something of a sea 
dandy. Had Sparshot lived in these days, no mariner 
of the red flag would have worn with greater enjoy- 
ment the ludicrous livery of buttons and gilt which 
ship-owners oblige the plain, respectable seamen of the 
quarter-deck and the bridge to go clothed in. In 
Sparshot’s time, however, the ambition of the mer- 
chant sailor, in the direction of splendor, seldom rose 
higher than brass buttons and a brass band around 
the cap; but these decorations being mainly appro- 
priated by captains of steamers carrying passengers 
between England and France, the commanders of ves- 
sels such as the Southern Cross were satisfied to re- 
main clothed as their forefathers had been — that is to 
say, in broadcloth and pilot-cloth. Some of them 
wore tall chimney-pot hats, and this head-gear they 
w T ould cling to whether under the Line in a dead calm 
or hove -to off the Horn in a hurricane blind with 


MRS. DINES*S JEWELS. 


snow. They also buttoned themselves up in frock- 
coats, so that, but for their weather-worn faces, and 
but for their peculiar rolling gait, which enabled the 
most lubberly eye to instantly recognize them as sail- 
ors, they were not to be distinguished from landsmen. 

But Captain Sparshot — and much of the moral of 
this story will be found stowed away in this state- 
ment — was something of a sea dandy ; indeed, I may 
say he was very much of a sea dandy, spite of his being 
a married man, and hard upon eight-and-forty years 
of age, and bald with thirty years of ocean usage, as 
though his head were a pebble of the beach polished 
by the immemorial heave of the breaker. His waist- 
coat was of many colors ; an immense pin decorated 
his satin cravat; his trousers were cut, not in the 
flowing fashion of the deep, but strictly after the 
latest West End style; his boots were varnished, and 
the great-coat that he wore open over an under-coat 
of black cloth would have been styled by a tailor a 
light and elegant garment. 

He stood in the gangway of his ship looking at an 
approaching boat. In the stern-sheets of the boat that 
was rowed by a single pair of oars sat a lady clothed 
in furs. She might indeed have passed for a part of 
the cargo — a bale of skins, say, that had been over- 
looked in the docks, and was now being sent on in a 
hurry to catch the ship. As the boat approached the 
vessel this unwieldy woman flourished her hand, on 
which the Captain gave her a low bow, swinging his 


10 


MRS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


cap with its naval peak down almost to the deck. He 
then got upon the accommodation ladder, and de- 
scended the steps to help the stout lady to get out 
of the boat. This was an act of extraordinary con- 
descension on the part of Captain Sparshot, and prob- 
ably unparalleled in the annals of merchant sea-cap- 
tains. t 

“ The first to arrive, and the most welcome of all, 5 * 
said he. “ But not a word, my dear Mrs. Dines, till 
I have you safe on deck. Confound ye, you lubber, 
why don’t you haul your boat’s stern in ? Don’t at- 
tempt to jump, my dear madam. Put your whole 
weight upon my arm — so ! Here we are ! And now 
I suppose that rogue of a waterman wants to fleece 
you. Leave him to my chief officer ; he shall settle 
with him.” 

Keeping hold of Mrs. Dines’s hand he led the way 
up the steep ladder, and the stout lady followed, blow- 
ing very hard until she had put her foot upon the 
deck, when she exclaimed, “ And glad I am I’m safe 
on board at last !” 

“Mr. Parr,” exclaimed the Captain to the chief 
mate, who was standing at the foot of the poop-lad- 
der, “be so good as to settle with that fellow along- 
side, and see that Mrs. Dines’s parcels are taken into 
her cabin. Where’s Mrs. Dines’s maid?” and as he 
spoke Mrs. Dines’s maid came out of the saloon. 

“ So, there you are, Pittar ?” cried Mrs. Dines to the 
woman. “Well, I missed you — indeed I did. But 



“ descended the steps to help the stout lady 




















































MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 11 

there was no room for you at my friend’s house, and 
so it couldn’t be helped. Was you sick in coming 
down the river ?” 

“ Hot at all, ma’am,” answered Pittar ; “ the ship* 
ping is a wonderful sight indeed, and I was too hin- 
terested to feel nauseated.” 

“ Stop till you see the ocean, Pittar,” said Mrs. 
Dines ; “ and stop till you see Sydney ’arbor. Take 
them parcels to my cabin. I hope it’s perfectly com- 
fortable, and that the bed’s properly made. What a 
day of excitement it’s been. Capting Sparshot, I must 
truly and really drink a glass of sherry and munch a 
biscuit.” 

“Step into the cuddy, Mrs. Dines,” said the Cap- 
tain, making a hook of his arm for the stout lady to 
take. “ Mr. Parr, should another boat come along 
with passengers let me know. There are two people, 
Mrs. Dines, I wish to compliment by receiving them 
at the gangway,” he continued, as he led the way into 
the saloon. “ Their sailing in our ship is an excellent 
advertisement for us. They are very highly connected 
people indeed— Major the Honorable Sebastian Stop- 
ford-Creake and his widowed sister, the Honorable 
Mrs. Wreathock. You see the fashionable newspapers 
mention the comings and goings of people in their con- 
dition, and the Southern Cross cannot be too widely 
advertised.” 

“ And where are they sailing to ?” said Mrs. Dines, 
sitting down. 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


12 

“ All the way out,” answered the Captain. “ Stew- 
ard, some sherry and biscuits, and look alive.” 

“ How many passengers in all, Capting Sparshot ?” 
inquired Mrs. Dines, lifting up her veil and looking 
around her. 

“ Twelve,” he answered. “ Miss Sophia de la Taste 
returns with us; Mr. and Mrs. du Boulay you also 
know. The others are strangers.” 

He poured out a glass of wine, and filled half a 
wine-glass for himself. 

“ Everything is perfectly safe, I hope, Capting ?” in- 
quired Mrs. Dines. 

“ Safe as the Bank of England,” he answered. 

“ I hope my objects of virtue, particularly the en- 
gravings, are packed in a dry place. Should anything 
be stained by salt-water Mr. Dines would never for- 
give me.” 

“ They are stowed away in a spare cabin below,” 
said the Captain ; “ and no salt-water can touch them 
unless the ship founders.” 

“ One picter alone cost me three hundred pounds,” 
said Mrs. Dines. “ It’s Cupid aiming an arrow. It’ll 
be the envy and admiration of the whole colony.” 

“ Have no fear. Cupid shall go ashore dry enough.” 

“ And the jewelry ?” 

“ In my iron safe in yonder cabin,” answered the 
Captain, pointing to his berth. 

“ There’s another boat making for the ship, sir,” 
called Mr. Parr, the chief mate, through the saloon door. 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


13 


Captain Sparshot rose, apologized to Mrs. Dines for 
leaving her, and went onto the quarter-deck with his 
binocular-glass, which he pointed at the boat that had 
been reported to him by the mate. Meanwhile Mrs. 
Dines, emptying her glass of sherry, entered her cabin. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE PASSENGERS OF THE U SOUTHERN CROSS.” 

There was still plenty of daylight abroad, but in 
the atmosphere floated a dimness as of smoke. A 
breeze was blowing up the river, and the cold, wide 
breast of water friskily streamed in ripples ; and in- 
ward-bound craft swept by with long white wakes 
astern of them, while those beating down swirled, 
heeling to the line of their covering boards, with arcs 
of foam behind them as they shifted their helm amid 
a thunder of canvas for the next “ board.” The wind 
sang in melancholy notes in the thick rigging of the 
ship. A few groups of steerage passengers hung here 
and there, and their voices came to the ear with a 
sulky, growling, complaining note in them, as if those 
who spoke were cursing the luck that had brought 
them to the ship. 

The Captain stood in the gangway. Clearly the 
people who were approaching the ship in a wherry 
were the individuals to whom he intended to pay the 
compliment of a personal reception. Putting down 
his binocular-glass, he descended the ladder, and, on 
arriving at the grating at the bottom of it, he made 


SHE LIFTED THE VEIL AND DISCLOSED HER FACE. 



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MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


15 


a low bow to the occupants of the boat, which at that 
moment swept alongside. 

There were two persons, a man and a woman. The 
man as he rose in the boat exhibited a fine, handsome, 
tall figure. The woman was dressed in deep mourn- 
ing, and her face was concealed by a crape veil. 

“ Have I the pleasure of addressing Major Stopford- 
Creake ?” exclaimed Captain Sparshot. 

“ That is my name , 55 responded the tall military fig- 
ure. “ Who are you, sir ?” 

“ I am Captain Sparshot, master of this ship. Glad 
to welcome ye aboard. The lady in the veil will be 
your sister, I presume ? Madam, give me your hand ; 55 
and with a variety of sea-bows, the Captain conducted 
the couple on deck. 

“ Am I to report any more boats, sir ? 55 exclaimed 
the chief officer, as the Captain passed him. 

“ Ho, sir , 55 answered the Captain. “ See that what- 
ever baggage is in the boat is handed up. This way, 
if you please , 55 said he, addressing the Major and his 
companion ; and they entered the saloon. 

“ Which is my sister’s cabin ?” inquired the Major. 

“ I will send for the stewardess , 55 said Captain Spar- 
shot. 

“ What a very beautiful ship !” exclaimed the lady 
in the crape veil ; and as she uttered the words she 
lifted the veil and disclosed her face. 

She was a pretty woman, probably eight-and-twenty 
years of age. Her hair was a reddish brown ; and 


16 


MBS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


her eyes a dark brown, large, liquid, and luminous. 
Her complexion was very clear, her lips red, her teeth 
white and regular, and her smile as she gazed around 
her was arch and sweet. It was understood that she 
was making the voyage for her health. Her mourn- 
ing was handsome. 

“ What a very beautiful ship !” she exclaimed ; and 
Captain Sparshot then and there thought that he had 
never heard any woman speak with more melodious 
accents. It was easy to see that she was high-born. 
Sparshot had not much acquaintance with the aristoc- 
racy, but his confidence in his own judgment was 
profound ; and as he furtively glanced at the pretty 
face of the Honorable Mrs. Wreathock, he mentally 
pronounced her as perfect an example of female qual- 
ity as ever stepped aboard a ship for a voyage. 

Nor was the Major unworthy of such a sister. He 
was a very handsome man indeed ; standing at least 
six foot in his stockings ; with a large iron-gray mus- 
tache, an aquiline nose, a keen, gray, searching eye, 
and iron-gray hair cropped close behind in true army 
style. He, too, was in mourning ; and Captain Spar- 
shot gazed with admiration at the excellent, easy, 
gentlemanly fit of the man’s whole dress. 

Mrs. Wreathock withdrew to her cabin; the Major 
remained for a while talking with the Captain. He 
complained in strong language of his sister having 
been disappointed by a lady’s-maid whom she had 
engaged ; he then went to his berth. A little while 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


17 


later several boats came alongside the ship. They 
contained the rest of the passengers, whose luggage, 
together with Mrs. Dines’s and the Major’s and his 
sister’s, had been stowed away in the hold when the 
vessel was in the East India Docks. There was now 
a great deal of confusion in the saloon — or cuddy, as it 
was then called ; passengers ran in and out of their 
berths ; the head steward and his assistants were 
lighting the lamps and laying the cloth for dinner ; 
the stewardess flitted here and there, knocking at this 
door, then at that, answering calls, and adding to the 
general bustle. But on deck all was quiet. It was 
raining, and the evening shadow had drawn down 
dark upon the river ; the lights of Gravesend mistily 
winked on the starboard beam, and the riding lights 
of many craft, which had brought up off the town, 
twinkled like stars upon the brows of the rocking or 
motionless shadows which they beaconed. All the 
’tween-deck passengers were below, under cover ; but 
the officer walking the poop -deck — a phantasmal 
shape glistening in oil-skins — could hear, through the 
crying and piping of the wind aloft, the sounds of a 
concertina merrily playing in the forecastle, with the 
frequent hoarse voices of men still under the influ- 
ence of drink bursting with hurricane lungs into a 
chorus. 

The after accommodation of the Southern Cross 
was somewhat unusual in ships of her class in the 
days to which this story belongs. Her saloon occu- 
2 


18 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


pied the breadth of the vessel. It was a handsomely 
furnished apartment, with two long tables, on each 
side of which were several revolving chairs. The 
cabins were abaft the saloon, and between them and 
the saloon was what might be termed a lounging 
place — a sort of drawing-room, containing a piano, 
arm-chairs, sofas, a whist-table or two, and the like. 
Forward of the saloon, on the port or left-hand side 
of the ship, was the Captain’s berth, a very large and 
handsome cabin ; and confronting it were two other 
berths, respectively occupied by the chief mate and 
the second mate. Such was the disposition of the 
interior under the poop-deck of the Southern Cross . 
There were cabins below in the steerage, which part 
of the ship was entered by a small hatch just under 
the fore part of the poop; but either the Southern 
Cross did not carry any steerage people this voyage, 
or no applications had been received from what, in 
those days, would be styled second-class passengers. 
The solitary occupant of the steerage was Mr. Wilkin- 
son, the ship’s surgeon. Down there he slept, and 
down there was his “ Surgery.” 

Now when the steward and his colleagues had 
lighted the silver-plated saloon lamps and draped the 
tables with snow-white damask, and glorified them 
by all requisites of crystal and plate, and decanters of 
wine, and centre-pieces containing flowers, the cuddy 
of the ship looked as brilliant, elegant, and hospitable 
an interior as the heart of passenger could desire. 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


19 


There were tall mirrors to reflect the light, and then 
there was the accentuation of contrast ; for the saloon 
windows in the fore part overlooked the quarter-deck, 
and the glass of those windows, as well as the glass 
of the skylights, was blind with wet and black with 
the night, and in the highest degree, therefore, sug- 
gestive of the rain, cold, and discomfort outside. 

The dinner-bell rang, the ladies and gentlemen came 
out of their cabins, and the Captain took his seat at 
the head of the table on the starboard side. There 
was no motion in the ship ; she lay as still as though 
hard and fast upon the Gravesend shore. Hence no- 
body could pretend to feel ill. In fact, several of the 
passengers were old and seasoned travellers. Both 
Mrs. Dines and Miss de la Taste had weathered the 
Horn. Mr. and Mrs. du Boulay were also returning 
to Australia in the ship that had brought them 
thence. 

The Captain, as I have said, seated himself at the 
head of the table on the right-hand side, and the head 
steward contrived — by order of the Captain, no doubt 
— that the passengers should be accommodated thus : 
the Honorable Mrs. Wreathock on Sparshot’s right, 
Mrs. Dines on Sparshot’s left, Mr. Winthrop next to 
Mrs. Wreathock, and Mr. du Boulay next to Mrs. 
Dines. Then came Mrs. du _ Boulay, and alongside 
her was seated Major the Honorable Sebastian Stop- 
ford-Creake. The rest of the passengers were seated 
at the table on the left, at the head of which was the 


20 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


first mate, Mr. Parr, while Mr. Wilkinson, the ship’s 
surgeon, took his place at the bottom. 

Mrs. Dines was the last to arrive at table. Every- 
body was then seated, and when she took her place 
all eyes were instantly fixed upon her. There was 
nothing in the least degree conspicuous in her ap- 
parel. Her dress was a black silk, and on her head 
was a black lace cap. But her jewelry! Her fin- 
gers were loaded with rings, and every time she 
moved her hands the precious stones flashed as though 
white, green, and red fires streamed from her fat mot- 
tled knuckles. Bound her neck was a thick gold 
chain, and at the extremity of it, at her waist, dangled, 
at the very least, a dozen costly odds and ends, main- 
ly gold coins, all of them of extraordinary rarity, and 
one or two as big as a crown piece. She also wore a 
very splendid brooch, and ear-rings of diamonds and 
other gems. 

She was a vast, unwieldy, shapeless mass of a wom- 
an, a homely, good-natured looking person, of a type 
of vulgarity essentially commonplace. She w r as not 
an Australian. No colony could produce the sort of 
vulgarity that was incarnated in Mrs. Dines. She 
was English, and her vulgarity was radically English. 
In her youth she had been a house-maid, but on the 
invitation of an uncle, whose reason for leaving Eng- 
land when three-and-twenty years of age was one of 
those domestic mysteries which good-natured people 
are willing to let alone, she took shipping for the An- 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


21 


tipodes, and within a year of her arrival was fortu- 
nate enough to attract the attention and win the love 
of young Mr. Dines, a gentleman of about eight-and- 
twenty, who, having failed in the ham and beef line 
in London, had emigrated to Australia ; had picked 
up some gold, had started as a squatter, and at the 
time of his marriage was doing very well. He was 
doing very well, I say, at the time of his marriage, 
but afterwards he did very much better. In a few 
years he made a large fortune, and at the date of this 
story Mr. Dines was everywhere regarded in Hew 
South Wales as a millionaire. 

The contrast between Mrs. Dines and the Honorable 
Mrs. Wreathock, who confronted her, was extraordi- 
narily marked. Captain Sparshot found the young 
widow very much prettier than he had at first imag- 
ined. Her widow’s cap could not conceal the beauty 
and luxuriance of her hair. Her eyes were full of 
fire and expression. She did not look ill ; her appear- 
ance did not suggest any urgent need of a voyage for 
the sake of her health ; but then it was to be easily 
guessed that her bereavement must be recent, and 
that her brother was taking her to Australia, not per- 
haps because her health was imperilled, but because 
her grief needed the distraction of a long absence 
from all melancholy associations. She was very 
quiet, very reserved, spoke seldom ; her voice was re- 
fined and musical, her smile sweet, with perhaps a 
hint of sadness in it, though this color of melancholy 


22 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


might come from her widow’s weeds. Yet whenever 
she smiled her prettiness was heightened into a sort 
of beauty by an expression of archness that showed 
like a look of amiable wonder in her, of tender sur- 
prise not wanting in artlessness. 

Not much was said at this first dinner on board the 
Southern Cross , and what was said chiefly took the 
form of questions addressed to the Captain. The few 
observations which Mrs. Dines let fall were more or 
less -directed at Mrs. Wreathock. But the young wid- 
ow scarcely noticed her ; once or twice a faint smile 
parted her lips, but she appeared to have eyes for lit- 
tle more than the interior of the saloon, around which 
she gazed with a childlike interest, and more than 
once she complimented Captain Sparshot on the beau- 
ty of his ship. 

For some time the Major ate and drank without ut- 
tering a syllable. His stare was prolonged and pecul- 
iar, and everybody within range of his eyes was hon- 
ored by a fixed and deliberate regard. He seemed to 
be trying to form an opinion of the characters and 
the social position of the people with whom he and 
his sister were to live until Sydney Bay was entered. 

“Pray, Captain Sparshot,” said the gentleman 
named Winthrop, “ how long are we to remain at an- 
chor here in the Thames ?” 

“We start to-morrow before daybreak,” answered 
the Captain. 

“ What keeps us here, Capting ?” said Mrs. Dines. 


MES. DINES’S JEWELS. 


23 


“ Business, madam, business , 55 answered Captain 
Sparshot, with a glance at Mrs. Wreathock, whose 
fine eyes were fastened upon him; “ business is the 
motive power of the mercantile marine. It starts us, 
and it stops us. It’s a sort of moral steam-engine, 
and a good many boilers are constantly bursting in 
consequence of it. 5 ' 

“ I believe , 55 said Major Stopford-Creake, speaking 
for the first time, “ that you call at Madeira ?” 

“ That is so , 55 answered the Captain. 

“ Is it not somewhat unusual for sailing ships bound 
to Australia to call at Madeira ? 55 exclaimed Mr. du 
Boulay. 

“ It is , 55 said the Captain. 

“What are you calling at Madeery for ? 55 asked 
Mrs. Dines. 

“ To receive a consignment of the wines of that isl- 
and , 55 answered the Captain. 

In this way ran the talk on that first day at table 
on board the Southern Cross . When dinner was over, 
the ladies withdrew to that part of the saloon which 
has been described as furnished with pianos, sofas, and 
so on. The chief mate arose from his seat at the 
head of the port table and walked through the cuddy 
onto the deck, followed by Mr. Wilkinson, the sur- 
geon ; but the Captain, Mr. Winthrop, the Major, and 
one or two other gentlemen kept their seats, and Spar- 
shot sent the wine round. 

“We are very few for a big ship , 55 said the Major. 


24 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


« But so much the better ; the voyage will resemble 
a yachting cruise.” 

“ There are a number of passengers in the ’tween- 
decks,” said Mr. Winthrop. 

“They will not trouble us here,” exclaimed the 
Captain. 

“Was that Mrs. Dines who sat on your left, Cap- 
tain ?” exclaimed a gentleman, a Mr. Eden, who had 
quitted his seat at the mate’s table to join the 
Captain’s. 

“ Yes, sir, that was Mrs. Dines,” answered the Cap- 
tain, in a subdued voice ; and turning his head so as to 
get the after end of the saloon into the corner of his 
eye, for though the pillar of the mizzen-mast, along 
with the piano and a sofa or two formed, so to 
speak, a division between the living part of the saloon 
and the drawing-room part of it, yet the space where 
the ladies w r ere seated was open, and voices in any de- 
gree raised were in consequence to be overheard. 

“I never saw such jewelry in my life,” said Mr. 
Eden. 

“ Too much of it ; much too much of it,” murmured 
Mr. Winthrop. 

“ There is no good in having valuable things if you 
don’t exhibit them,” said Major Stopf ord - Creake. 
“ Figure yourself a lover of painting ; you buy a Ru- 
bens or a Guido, and you hang it up with its face to 
the wall !” 

“ Very true for you, sir,” said Sparshot, with a high- 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


25 


ly respectful and very appreciative inclination of the 
head. 

“Much depends upon what sort of a person it is 
that wears jewelry,” said Mr. Winthrop. “ A duch- 
ess may exhibit herself incrusted with gems, and 
loaded with gold, and nobody thinks anything of it. 
But — ” and here he looked in the direction of Mrs. 
Dines. 

Major Stopford-Creake smiled. 

“I have heard of Mr. Dines,” said Mr. Eden. “I 
believe he is one of the richest men in Australia.” 

“ He is a very rich man, sir,” said the Captain. 

“ By George !” exclaimed Mr. Winthrop, suddenly 
striking the table with his fist ; “it just occurs to me 
that Mrs. Dines must be the lady who purchased a 
wonderful necklace the other day. Yes ! Of course. 
I now remember. She was to sail in this ship. There 
was an account of the sale of jewels in an evening 
paper. What was the sum she gave — forty thousand 
pounds wasn’t it ?” 

“Softly, gentlemen, softly,” exclaimed Sparshot. 
“ Lord, how figures multiply when one hasn’t got to 
pay. Half forty, sir, half forty.” 

“ What do you say she bought ?” inquired the Major. 

The Captain turned his head again so as to obtain 
an askant view of the ladies at the extremity of the 
saloon, and then dropping his voice into a low, growl- 
ing key, he told Major Stopford-Creake that Mrs. 
Dines, having been advised to make the voyage from 


26 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


Australia to England and back again for her health, 
had been commissioned by her husband to make sun- 
dry expensive purchases in the shape of jewels and 
works of art. One of the purchases was a magnifi- 
cent diamond necklace that had cost hard upon <£23,- 
000. But having said this, the Captain halted abrupt- 
ly in his speech, and looked around him uneasily as 
though he feared he should be suspected of overtalk- 
ing himself. The Major’s expression, however, was 
one of inattention. Mr. Winthrop was helping him- 
self to more claret and did not seem to hear, and Mr. 
Eden merely exclaimed, “ Oh, indeed !” 

When Sparshot again spoke it was to change the 
subject, and shortly afterwards he and the Major and 
Mr. Winthrop and Mr. du Boulay stepped outside the 
cuddy, under the shelter of the overhanging ledge of 
the poop, to smoke a cigar, for in those days there 
were no smoking-rooms on board passenger sailing 
ships. 


CHAPTER III. 


CAPTAIN SPARSHOT “ TAKES SIGHTS.” 

Long before sunrise next morning the tug had laid 
hold of the Southern Cross , and some time between ten 
and eleven the ship was off the North Foreland, with 
a few wings of jibs and staysails hoisted, and the tug 
ahead dragging her along at some five or six miles in 
the hour. It was a bright morning ; the sea smooth, 
rippling in light blue lines out of the east, whence a 
small, pleasant breeze of wind was blowing; and the 
heavens were lofty and beautiful with the wide spread 
of the delicate cloud called a “ mackerel ” sky, every 
link of the compacted vapor touched into tints of rose 
and yellow. The cliffs of the Foreland and of Broad- 
stairs hung in milk-white terraces over the blue curl 
and creaming yeast of the breakers, and seaward 
were twenty sights to be seen : chocolate - colored 
smacks making northward for the fisheries; a col- 
lier with dark sails striving for Ramsgate harbor and 
coming up to windward with the tide; the dusty 
smoke of a steamer shearing through it, past the 
southern limb of the Goodwins on her way to the 
French coast, her hull and funnels out of sight. 

There was no motion in the water ; the passengers 


28 


MRS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


had breakfasted and were on deck. The pilot was still 
in charge of the ship, and the Captain was, therefore, 
a man of leisure, and he was now making the most 
of his opportunities by stumping the poop with Mrs. 
Wreathock on one side of him and Mrs. Dines on the 
other. The Major, in a great-coat with fur round the 
neck and sleeves, paced to and fro with Mr. du Bou- 
lay ; Mr. Eden conversed with the pilot, and the rest 
of the passengers moved here and there in twos and 
threes, admiring the scenery of the Foreland coast, 
peering into the binnacle - stand, or staring at the 
’tween-deck passengers who hung about in the waist 
or on the forcastle. 

“ I wish we could have weather of this sort all the 
way to Australia and home again,” said Mrs. Wreath- 
ock, in her musical voice. 

“We should want more wind than this to make a 
passage,” said Sparshot. 

“ I suppose you will live ashore, ma’am, while you 
are at Sydney ?” said Mrs. Dines. 

“Yes,” exclaimed Mrs. "Wreathock, smiling; “I am 
sure my brother and I will have had enough of the 
ship by that time.” 

“ I hope you will come and stop with Mr. Dines 
and me. It sounds a little early to ask,” said Mrs. 
Dines, “ but it don’t signify how long beforehand you 
give an invitation, providing it’s genuine and ’arty. 
Some people asks merely out of politeness, and in 
their souls they pray that their invites won’t be ac- 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


29 


cepted. Mr. Dines and me are not of such. If you 
and your brother will stop with us we shall be truly 
honored.” 

She aspirated the “h” in “ honored” so strongly, 
that the Captain, to conceal his mirth, stepped aside 
to the standard compass, and stood viewing it till his 
grin had faded. Mrs. Wreathock thanked Mrs. Dines 
pleasantly and gratefully. The Captain rejoined the 
ladies. 

“ I have some wonderful picters down-stairs,” said 
Mrs. Dines, “ but there’ll be no unpacking of ’em, I’m 
afraid, for you to see till they’re safe in Sydney, ready 
for hanging. At least, I think them wonderful. I 
may have been cheated. If so, Mr. Dines ’ll be very 
unsparing. I’m not much of a judge, myself, of pict- 
ers. People laugh at me because I often say that the 
frames are the best part of ’em, and so they are! 
What’s a picter without a frame ?” 

“ No, no, Mrs. Dines, I’m not with you there,” said 
Sparshot; a you might as well ask, What is a man 
without a cocked hat ?” 

“Well, and if you was an admiral, Capting Spar- 
shot, what would you be without a cocked hat ?” said 
Mrs. Dines. “ Only think of Lord Nelson giving his 
orders in a wide-awake.” 

“I observed last evening,” said Mrs. Wreathock, 
“that you wear some very beautiful coins attached 
to your chain, Mrs. Dines. I am very fond of coins. 
If I were rich I should love to collect them.” 


30 


MKS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


On this Mrs. Dines, opening the lower portion of 
the very rich, warm mantle she wore, lifted the mass 
of coins and trinkets which hung at the end of her 
chain, and begged Mrs. Wreathock to inspect them. 
Captain Sparshot left the ladies and joined the 
pilot, with whom he entered into conversation. Mrs. 
Wreathock and Mrs. Dines seated themselves on a 
bench against one of the skylights, that the coins 
might be conveniently handled and their history re- 
lated. When the coins had been examined and ad- 
mired the ladies resumed their walk, in the course of 
which, on Mrs. Wreathock lamenting that her maid 
had failed her at the last moment, when it was too 
late to supply her place, Mrs. Dines insisted on her 
employing Pittar whenever she should have occasion 
for the services of a lady’s-maid. 

“ That vulgar old woman,” said Mr. du Boulay to 
his wife, “is going to make up to the widow because 
she’s an honorable. I bet she will ask Mrs. Wreath- 
ock and her brother to her house, and the association 
of such guests will end in old Dines sailing for Europe, 
and going to work to get a knighthood, and then that 
fat and dreadful woman will be her ladyship” 

But now the ship was off the South Foreland, 
where the Channel yawns widely past the extremity 
of the deadly shoal of Goodwins, and both the South- 
ern Cross and the tug that was towing her fell 
a-courtesying. Here, indeed, was to be felt a little 
movement called a swell. The breeze, too, freshened 


MRS. DINES ? S JEWELS. 


31 


on a sudden, and orders were given for the fore and 
main top-sails to be set — large whole sails in those 
days, the main carrying four reefs as though spread 
by a line-of -battle ship. Mrs. Wreathock turned pale, 
and came to a stand by the side of Mrs. Dines with 
her hand to her brow. 

“ I believe I shall have to lie down,” said she. 

“ Then take my arm, and let me see you comfort- 
able,” said Mrs. Dines. Whereupon Mrs. Wreathock, 
whose face was certainly very white, passed her little 
gloved hand under the stout arm of Mrs. Dines, and 
the two ladies descended the companion-stairs. 

“ It looks as if my sister were going to be ill,” said 
Major Stopford-Creake, speaking to Mr. Winthrop, 
who stood near. 

“ I am not surprised,” answered Mr. Winthrop ; “ I 
feel as if I were rather going that way myself.” 

“I was never sea-sick in my life,” said the Major. 
“ I have made three voyages to India, and never 
knew what nausea was. A sudden shock is consid- 
ered a good remedy for sea-sickness. There was a 
fellow in my regiment who suffered deucedly when 
upon the water. He had a very fine dog with him 
in the ship. One day the dog fell overboard. My 
friend implored the captain to stop the ship and pick 
the dog up. The captain declined to do anything of 
the sort ; on which my friend, sea-sick as he was, pull- 
ing off his coat, went overboard after the dog, and, of 
course, they had to stop the ship to pick him up. 


32 


MBS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


Haw, haw, haw ! Both man and beast were rescued, 
and never afterwards did my friend complain of sea- 
sickness.” 

“Excuse me for abruptly leaving you,” said Mr. 
Winthrop, and he disappeared. 

“ What sort of weather are we going to have down 
Channel, Captain ?” inquired the Major, as Sparshot 
slowly approached, looking aloft. 

“ Nice windy weather, I hope,” answered Sparshot. 
“ I like the look of those mare’s-tails streaming away 
in a fringe from that mackerel sky.” 

“ What time do you give yourself to make Madeira 
in ?” 

“Why, suppose you call it ten days,” answered 
Sparshot. 

Here the pilot came up to the Captain, and the 
Major stepping to the rail, leaned against it, and with 
folded arms and thoughtful face stood watching the 
sailors making sail upon the ship. 

“ He is certainly the handsomest man I have ever 
seen,” exclaimed Miss de la Taste to the younger 
Miss Sparkes, as they stood cautiously glancing at 
him from the other side of the deck. 

“ I think he is haughty,” said Miss Sparkes. “ I 
am sure he has a higher opinion of himself than his 
sister has of herself. Mrs. Wreathock is already on 
very friendly terms with Mrs. Dines, who has seen 
her to her cabin, and I dare say is insisting upon 
waiting on her. The Major there has not noticed 


MBS. DINERS JEWELS. 


33 


Mrs. Dines. He seems to notice nobody. Yes, he 
may exchange a word or two with members of his 
own sex, but there might not be a lady passenger on 
board if one was to form conclusions by his behavior.” 

“ It is a little soon,” said Miss de la Taste. “ Peo- 
ple of distinction are always languid and wary at the 
beginning. As they are both honorables they must 
be the son and daughter of a lord. What is the title, 
do you know ?” 

“ I have not heard,” answered Miss Sparkes. “ Is 
he a married man ?” 

“ I have a fancy that he is a widower,” answered 
Miss de la Taste; “but I really couldn’t tell you 
what puts it into my head.” 

“ Mrs. Wreathock does not show many traces of 
grief.” 

“ There might not have been much love lost.” 

“ How aristocratic blood asserts itself !” said Miss 
Sparkes. “ One could pick out Mrs. Wreathock in a 
crowd at a glance as a member of the aristocracy.” 

“ Don’t be shocked,” said Miss de la Taste. “ I am 
going to ask the steward for a little drop of brandy- 
and- water. With me it is only the first step that 
costs. I shall be all right in a few hours.” 

The tug let fall the hawser of the Southern Gross 
and swept round up Channel, with the captain waving 
his hand, on his paddle-box; to the outward-bound 
ship. A Deal boat that had been towing astern 
hauled alongside, the pilot dropped into her, and the 

3 


34 


MRS. DINES ; S JEWELS. 


little craft sailed away for Dover harbor. The breeze 
was fresh, and it was a fair wind for the ship’s course. 
All plain sail was heaped on the vessel, and she rushed, 
bowing, over the waters of the Channel with a speed 
that drew very close to steam, as steam then went. 
The white foam flashed from her bows ; it streamed 
after her in a broad and dazzling race; the windy 
sunshine whitened the stirless, distended canvas into 
the gleaming softness of silk ; the line of coast to star- 
board went dimming away into blue faintness as the 
ship drew out; but as the afternoon advanced the 
wind continued to freshen, with a trifling shift to the 
southward, and first the royals came in, and then the 
main-sail was rolled up, and then the fore and mizzen 
top-gallant sails with sundry triangular canvas were 
furled; and by dinner-time that evening, when the 
lamps were shining in the cuddy, and when the stew- 
ards were staggering on rounded shanks about the 
tables, the Southern Cross was rolling and pitching on 
a high Channel sea. 

But the gale was abaft the beam, and the ship’s 
flight before it w r as noble and inspiriting ; she raised 
foam to the catheads as she stooped her massive bows, 
and the roaring fabric of her masts and rigging, with 
their narrow bands of canvas full of thunder, swung 
with stately oscillations under a sky along which the 
scud was pouring like smoke, though it left the dance 
of stars brilliant enough to fling a delicate sheen upon 
the night, and to enable Sparshot, his mates, and the 


MBS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


35 


fellows stationed on the forecastle to keep a bright 
lookout, and to see a mile or two ahead of them. 

On this day very few sat down to dinner. The 
Major was one of them. He made an excellent re- 
past, and proved himself the best sailor of all the 
passengers, fresh as some of them were from three 
months of ocean-going. Mrs. Dines kept her cabin. 
In fact, none of the ladies showed themselves. The 
stewardess was full of business, and the most sea-sick 
of all the people was Mrs. Dines’s maid Pittar. 

Well, it blew strong all the way down Channel, and 
the gale drove the Southern Cross with reefed top- 
sails clear of the Scilly Islands before it dropped. 
Then the ship took a new wind out of the west. 
With this wind came fine weather, lines of long, blue, 
glittering seas, with a true Atlantic weight in the 
heave of them as they heeled the ship till the ruddy 
light of her copper glowed over the melting head of 
the surge. The sun shone brightly by day, there was 
a corner of the moon by night ; but it was very cold, 
and of the ladies Mrs. Dines alone showed her nose 
on deck. Mrs. Sparkes and Mrs. Eden were still con- 
fined to their cabins, but Mrs. Wreathock was now 
feeling a little easier ; and the Major, coming out of 
her berth and meeting the Captain, told him that he 
expected his sister would be able to rise and move 
about and enjoy the scene of ship and sea when the 
vessel had gone clear of the Bay of Biscay. 

And it came to pass as the Major had predicted, for 


36 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


when the ship had been five days “ out, 5 ’ as it is called, 
Sparshot, who stood with a sextant in his hand, wait- 
ing with his mates for the sun to allow him to make 
eight bells, heard his name pronounced by a voice 
that was peculiarly musical, and on starting and look- 
ing round he beheld Mrs. Wreathock leaning upon 
the arm of her brother. Always when Sparshot 
viewed Mrs. Wreathock he arrived at the conclusion 
that he had never seen her look prettier. He thought 
so now, and he was certain to go on thinking so while 
she remained on board the Southern Cross. 

Ho one would have supposed that she had been 
confined to her cabin for five days with that most dis- 
tressing and unbecoming of all sensations, sea-sickness. 
Her eyes were bright, her lips red, and when she part- 
ed them her -white teeth glanced like light. A delicate 
bloom tinged her cheeks, and in the sunshine her red- 
dish-brown hair — as much of it as was visible — as it 
trembled to the breeze upon her brow, looked as 
though it had been streaked with a brush dipped in 
liquid bronze. 

“I am truly rejoiced to see you on deck, madam,” 
said Sparshot, eying her with deep admiration and 
saluting her with one of his very handsomest bows. 

She thanked him, and, casting her dark eyes over 
the ship, she admired aloud the beautiful picture of 
the speeding fabric. Sometimes the Captain would 
put his eye to the little telescope affixed to his sex- 
tant, but every time he removed his gaze from the re- 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


37 


flection of the sun he directed it, full of admiration, at 
Mrs. Wreathock. 

“What are you doing with that strange instru- 
ment ?” she asked. 

“ The Captain is taking sights — surely you under- 
stand, Fanny !” said the Major, somewhat gruffly. 

“ I do not understand,” said Mrs. Wreathock. “ You 
are not very good-tempered this morning, Sebastian. 
I am sure Captain Sparshot will explain the use of 
that instrument to me ?” 

“ In a minute, madam,” said Sparshot ; and put- 
ting the sextant to his eye he held it steady for a 
moment or two, and then called out, “Make eight 
bells !” 

Instantly eight bells was struck on some part of the 
ship. The Major moved off as though to see who it 
was that rang the bell. 

“ What can be the meaning of it all ?” cried Mrs. 
Wreathock, with her pretty face full of wonder and 
interest. 

“ It is twelve o’clock by the sun,” said the Captain, 
smiling. 

“ But twelve o’clock is not the right time,” she ex- 
claimed, pulling out and looking at a small gold 
watch. 

“ It is twelve o’clock here,” said the Captain ; “ your 
watch is twelve o’clock there” 

“ I do not understand,” said she. 

“ If you are really interested in the art of naviga- 


38 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


tion,” exclaimed Sparshot, “ 1 shall feel honored by 
your allowing me to explain it to you as well as I 
can.” 

“You are most kind. Interested!” cried Mrs. 
Wreathock. “ Why, Captain Sparshot, w r hat could be 
more beautiful and wonderful than the science that 
enables you to carry this splendid ship full of human 
beings, all whose lives are in your keeping, over the 
trackless waste of ocean — and trackless it is,” she 
added, sweeping the water with her fine eyes ; “ never 
seeing land for weeks and weeks, and yet arriving at 
your destination, which may be a mere speck on the 
map, and not missing it by so much as a mile !” 

“ No, nor by so much as a quarter of a mile !” ex- 
claimed Captain Sparshot, whose smile of gratification 
and self-complacency as he listened to the widow’s 
praise of the noble art of navigation was so diverting 
that Miss de la Taste, who was walking the poop on 
the other side, was forced to turn her head to conceal 
her mirth. 

“ What is the name of that polished instrument in 
your hand?” inquired Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ It is called a sextant,” said Sparshot ; “ but I was 
going to say this: I must now go below and work 
out the reckoning — that is to say, I must find out in 
Tvhat part of the world the ship has arrived. After 
lunch, w r ith your leave, I shall be happy to give you a 
lesson in navigation.” 

She thanked him, and as she did so Sparshot fancied 


MKS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


39 


that her eyes dwelt with an expression of interest upon 
his countenance. He went down the poop-ladder on 
to the quarter-deck and entered his cabin, but before 
he applied himself to working out his sights, he paused 
a moment or two before a square of looking-glass. 


CHAPTER IV. 


A LESSON IN NAVIGATION. 

A number of the passengers assembled at the lunch- 
eon-table that day. The hard weather had passed ; the 
brilliant sunshine excited in the mind an imagination 
of tropic aromas in the breeze ; the light of the deep 
blue radiant sea was in the wind, and the atmosphere 
of the saloon or cuddy seemed to be tinctured by the 
silvery azure which came floating in on either hand 
through the large circular windows in the ship’s sides. 
The breeze was on the beam, the fore-topmast stud- 
ding-sail had been run aloft, and the vessel, steadied by 
the pressure of the height of cloths, took the liquid 
slopes with rhythmic motion, too buoyant and gently 
regular to be inconvenient. 

The conversation ran on twenty commonplace topics ; 
then said the Major, wiping his iron-gray mustache 
and speaking for the first time : 

“ What sort of a place is Madeira, do you know, Cap- 
tain ? I’ve touched at St.Helena, but never at Madeira.” 

“ I was at Madeira once only,” said the Captain; “ it 
is' many years ago, and I forget the place.” 

“ Funchal’s the name of its town, I think,” said the 
Major. “ Has it a harbor ?” 


MES. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


41 


“ No, sir,” answered Sparshot, “ you anchor off Fun- 
chal in the open sea.” 

“ How do ships manage when it comes on to blow ?” 
said the Major. 

“ Why, there are many ways of managing, I dare 
say,” answered the Captain, laughing. 

“ It ain’t dangerous to lay off Madeery, is it ?” in- 
quired Mrs. Dines. 

“ Bless me, no, ma’am,” said the Captain. “ Suppose 
an inshore gale ; the island isn’t so big but that a man 
can’t find room to ratch clear of it. No cause to be 
alarmed, Mrs. Dines ; and, besides, how many fathoms 
d’ye think I mean to bring up in ?” 

“ Well, Capting,” said Mrs. Dines, “ I’ve always 
heard, and I shall always say, that the ship you are 
in command of is the safest on the seas.” 

“Only think, Mrs. Dines !” exclaimed Mrs. Wreath- 
ock, with her gentle manner and in her soft voice, 
“ Captain Sparshot has been good enough to promise 
to teach me navigation.” 

“I suppose,” exclaimed the Major, “that there’s 
pretty good holding -ground off Madeira for a ship’s 
anchor, even if it should come on to blow hard ?” 

“ I’ve never heard any complaint of the anchorage,” 
answered the Captain. 

“ What was you saying about navigation and Cap- 
tain Sparshot, Mrs. Wreathock ?” exclaimed Mrs. Dines. 

“Mrs. Wreathock doesn’t quite understand how I 
find out what o’clock it is by the sun, and I’ve prom- 


42 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


ised to explain,” said Sparshot, addressing Mrs. Dines, 
but talking at Major Stopford-Creake. 

But the Major appeared to have sunk into a brown 
study. His eyes were rooted upon a glass of marsala 
which he mechanically revolved by its stem. You 
might have supposed that he had been visited by some 
uneasy fancy about the anchorage off Madeira. In- 
deed, Mr. Winthrop was so convinced of this that he 
exclaimed, good-naturedly, “ I do not remember ever 
having heard of a ship being blown ashore at Ma- 
deira.” The Major took no notice. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Dines, Sparshot, and Mrs. Wreath- 
ock conversed, the other passengers chatting among 
themselves. 

“ Where’s Mrs. Wreathock going to learn her les- 
son ?” asked Mrs. Dines. 

“ On deck, or at this table when the cloth is removed, 
if the lady pleases,” replied Sparshot, looking at Mrs. 
Wreathock. 

“ But is it not necessary that I should see the instru- 
ments you use ? Else how shall I understand your 
explanations ?” said Mrs. Wreathock, smiling. 

“ What are the instruments ?” inquired Mrs. Dines ; 
and the two ladies fastened their eyes upon Sparshot, 
who answered : 

“ Why, as to instruments, there’s but a sextant that 
I know of, unless you choose to call the chronometer 
an instrument.” 

“ What is a chronometer ?” inquired Mrs. Wreathock. 


MRS. DINES^S JEWELS. 


43 


Captain Sparshot stared a moment at her, as though 
wondering whether she were in earnest, then answered, 
“ A chronometer is a clock.” 

“I knew that,” said Mrs. Dines. 

“ A peculiar sort of clock, I suppose?” exclaimed 
Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ The very best sort of clock that artists in clocks 
can put together,” responded Sparshot. 

“Is it used in navigation?” asked Mrs. Wreathock. 

Sparshot smiled. “ It is Greenwich time, madam. 
Without a chronometer we should have to depend for 
our longitude upon dead reckoning ; w r hich reminds me 
that the reel-log is another instrument which must be 
shown to you if you want to understand the business 
of the sailor.” 

“You interest me greatly, Captain Sparshot,” said 
Mrs. Wreathock. “You must really let me see your 
chronometer. You will ridicule my ignorance, but I 
assure you that though I have seen the word 4 chro- 
nometer’ in print — perhaps in a dictionary; I know 
not where — I never before knew that it signified a 
clock.” 

“You will have to step into my cabin to see my 
chronometer,” exclaimed the Captain. “ I have three 
of them. They are delicate pieces of machinery, and 
I never suffer them to be moved on any account 
whatever.” 

“ Have you ever seen a chronometer ?” said Mrs. 
Wreathock to Mrs. Dines. 


44 


MRS. DINES© JEWELS. 


« I cannot say that I ever took notice of one,” an- 
swered Mrs. Dines, “ but I dare say I’ve seen them in 
jewellers’ windows without recognizing them as such.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Mrs. Wreathock, timidly, “ Captain 
Sparshot will take you and me into his cabin and show 
us his chronometers ?” 

“ Most happy, indeed,” said Captain Sparshot ; and, 
beckoning with a square forefinger to one of the stew- 
ards, he leaned back in his chair, and in a w T hisper 
bade the fellow go to his cabin and see that it was all 
clear for the reception of a couple of ladies. 

Major Stopford-Creake rose from his seat, and saun- 
tered through the saloon door onto the quarter-deck. 
He was followed by others of the passengers. Eti- 
quette does not govern the luncheon and the dinner- 
table at sea as on land. When you have eaten you 
go, ladies or no ladies. So it used to be, certainly, and 
so it still is, I believe. 

Presently the Captain left his chair and walked to 
his cabin, followed by Mrs. Dines and Mrs. Wreathock. 
He held open the <door of the berth, smiling continu- 
ously, being much amused and much gratified by Mrs. 
Wreathock’s interest in his professional duties, by her 
engaging ignorance, and by her fascinating inquisitive- 
ness ; and the two ladies entered the berth. 

It was a large cabin — the words “cabin” and “berth” 
are interchangeable ; but berth strictly means sleeping- 
room on board ship, and cabin a living-room. It was, 
I say, a large cabin, situated, as I have elsewhere said, 


MRS. DLNES’s JEWELS. 


45 


on the port or left-hand side of the forward end of the 
saloon, and confronted by the first and second mates’ 
berths. It was lighted by a large circular window in 
the ship’s side, and by two square windows which 
overlooked the quarter-deck. Sparshot swung in a 
cot when he went to bed, but this cot had been re- 
moved by the steward, rolled up, and stowed away in 
a corner, and, therefore, to the ladies there was no visi- 
ble proof that Sparshot ever went to bed at all. In a 
corner of this sea-room, cleated to the deck, stood a 
writing-table. A length of mahogany locker was af- 
fixed to the side of the bulkhead. In one corner was 
a chest of drawers, in another corner a washstand : 
sundry garments, belonging to Sparshot, swung with 
the movements of the ship from a row of pegs in the 
bulkhead. The inner wall was embellished by por- 
traits of Mrs. Sparshot, the Captain’s wife, and old 
Mrs. Sparshot, the Captain’s mother, and by Captain 
Sparshot, when he was second mate and had plenty of 
hair on his head. Other details of the furniture of 
the Captain’s cabin comprised a bag of charts, a very 
handsome telescope on brackets, divers mathematical 
instruments, an official log-book, a collection of vol- 
umes, and so forth ; and immediately opposite the door, 
securely fastened to the deck, stood a massive safe. 

Mrs. Wreathock gazed about her with many marks 
of interest, but Mrs. Dines had on several occasions 
visited the Captain’s cabin, and she appeared to see 
nothing worth looking at. 


46 


MES. DINES S JEWELS. 


“ Forgive my curiosity, Captain Sparshot,” said Mrs. 
Wreathock; “but — pray where do you sleep?” 

“ I hang myself up on those hooks when I go to 
bed,” said the Captain, smiling, and adjusting his hair 
with one hand, while he pointed to the upper deck or 
ceiling with the other ; then, with an admiring coun- 
tenance, he explained that he slept in a cot ; and he 
begged Mrs. Wreathock to draw to the table. 

The two ladies drew to the table, and Sparshot 
forthwith fell to explaining, as intelligibly as his com- 
mand of words permitted, the meaning of the term 
navigation. He took a sheet of paper, he sketched 
ships in various positions, he drew representations of 
points of land, he marked off distances with a pair of 
compasses upon a chart ; he explained the use of the 
reel-log, discoursed on the mariners’ compass; ex- 
plained how the antagonism of head winds was to be 
defeated, and, taking up his sextant, tried his best to 
make the ladies understand how he managed to dis- 
cover what o’clock it was at noon, and how, by that 
same instrument, a man could find out Tvhere he was 
in the dead of night by shooting a star with it, or 
pointing it at the moon. 

Mrs. Wreathock listened with flattering attention. 
It was not to be supposed that she could understand 
everything the Captain said, but her murmurs and 
nods, backed by the fixed regard of her fine, dark, 
liquid eyes, assured Sparshot that she followed him 
with intelligence. On the other hand, Mrs. Dines 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


47 


once or twice smothered a yawn, and her little, inex- 
pressive eyes wandered often from the paper or chart 
which Sparshot overhung with a red and grinning 
face. 

Presently the Captain lifted the lid of a mahogany 
locker, and exposed three boxes, most carefully packed 
in horse-hair, one of which he opened. 

“ That’s what we call a chronometer,” said he. 

Mrs. Wreathock inclined her pretty face to view it, 
then pulling out her watch, exclaimed, “ The clock is 
wrong !” 

“ I hope not,” exclaimed the Captain ; “ the time 
that you see there is the hour at Greenwich.” 

“ I never could understand what they calls differ- 
ence of time,” exclaimed Mrs. Dines. “When it’s 
one o’clock in Sydney why ain’t it one o’clock in 
London?” 

“ Didn’t I explain ?” said Sparshot ; “ but your at- 
tention wasn’t with me. It was there,” said he, point- 
ing to the iron safe. 

“Why there?” exclaimed Mrs. Wreathock, drawing 
away from the chronometer over which she had been 
bending. “ Oh, I remember ! You told me that Cap- 
tain Sparshot had charge of your wonderful necklace.” 

“ I’ll venture to say,” exclaimed Captain Sparshot, 
“ that Mrs. Wreathock is now capable of explaining to 
you, Mrs. Dines, why it is impossible that it should 
be one o’clock at Sydney when it is one o’clock in 
London.” 


48 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


“ I do not care to know,” said Mrs. Dines. “ To 
tell you the truth, Capting Sparshot, I am sick of the 
subject, and did not think wdien I came here that your 
explanations would run to such great lengths. It is 
not the business of a woman to learn what’s only 
proper for men to know. If women meddles with 
the works of man, what’s to become of him? Mrs. 
Wreathock, would you like to see my jewelry?” 

Mrs. Wreathock’s eyes glistened, and her face in- 
stantly lighted up. 

“ How can you ask me such a question, Mrs. Dines? 
What can be more heavenly than precious stones ? I 
am never tired of looking at and admiring good 
jewelry.” 

“ Am I to show them, Mrs. Dines ?” said Captain 
Sparshot, a little sullenly, for he could not immedi- 
ately recover the effect produced upon his mind by 
Mrs. Dines’s blunt speech. 

“ Certainly !” said Mrs. Dines ; “ they w r as only 
bought to show.” 

On this the Captain, putting his hand in his pocket, 
produced a small bunch of keys, with one of which he 
opened a narrow drawer placed between two larger 
drawers in the table on which he had been explaining 
the art of navigation to the ladies. And from this 
little drawer he took two keys. These keys he ap- 
plied to the safe and pulled open the massive iron 
door. The safe was divided by a shelf, and both the 
upper and the lower compartments were stocked with 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


49 


parcels, some of them brown paper, sealed, others of 
white tissue-paper, and here and there was a dark 
morocco or plain leather or velvet case, its owner not 
having gone to the trouble of wrapping it up. 

“ Do all these parcels and cases contain jewelry V 9 
inquired Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ A good many of them do,” answered the Captain, 
beginning to grope among the contents in the lower 
part of the safe. “ There’s a deal of jewelry belong- 
ing to Mrs. du Boulay here, and some belonging to 
Mrs. Sparkes,'and a few trifles to Mrs. Eden. What’s 
worth least occupies most room, of course.” 

“ I brought very little jewelry with me,” said Mrs. 
Wreathock, glancing at her fingers, on which were 
her wedding-ring and two or three other rings, one of 
which sparkled. “ A friend of mine, Lady Horatia 
Craven, who is very fond of travelling by sea, advised 
me to leave my jewelry at home. Much of it has been 
long in the family, and some of it I should be very, 
very sorry indeed to lose,” she added, with a sigh. 

“ Her ladyship advised you wisely,” said Sparshot. 
“ I wish most lady passengers were as sensibly 
prompted. It would be saving us masters a good 
deal of responsibility. Why, I dare say there’s a 
matter of forty thousand pounds’ worth, and perhaps 
more, locked up here. . . . Yes, I knew that I had the 
diamonds at the back ; here they are,” and he brought 
out a flat, circular parcel about the size of a dinner- 
plate. He placed the parcel in the hands of Mrs. 

4 


50 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


Dines, who, opening the paper, that was unsealed, 
took out a case, the lid of which leaped to the press- 
ure of her thumb, and disclosed a necklace of magnifi- 
cent diamonds. 

Magnificent they were! One stone, called the 
“ Light of the Age , 55 famous not only for size but for 
all other perfections of color and quality, shone like a 
little moon in the circle of glorious stars which it 
linked at the part that, when the necklace was worn, 
rested upon the throat. Mrs. Wreathock uttered a 
single exclamation of pleasure, and then viewed the 
necklace in silence. 

“ Would you like to have it in your hands ? 55 said 
Mrs. Dines. 

“ No, let it rest. It could not show more beauti- 
fully than as it lies , 55 answered Mrs. Wreathock. 

“And worth hard upon twenty -three thousand 
pounds , 55 exclaimed Sparshot, as though thinking 
aloud. “Well, give me a quarter of its value in cash, 
and I 5 d set up ashore, and my friends would never 
hear of me at sea again. Bless me, ladies ! but isn’t 
it sinful to waste all the good money those stones 
represent by locking it up as it were in a bit of a 
velvet case? What happiness for multitudes in the 
worth of one of those stones alone . 55 

“People have their whims , 55 said Mrs. Dines; “and 
mine’s diamonds . 55 

“ The whim for jewels must have a famishing ap- 
petite if it’s not to be appeased by such gems as 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


51 


those,” said the Captain. “ What do you think of 
them, Mrs. Wreathock V 9 

Her eyes, which were as bright as the diamonds, 
had been fastened upon the necklace as it lay in the 
case in Mrs. Dines’s hand; but when Sparshot ad- 
dressed her she withdrew her gaze from the jewels, 
and looked at him with a smile. 

“ Of course, I must envy Mrs. Dines,” she answered ; 
“she is the owner of the loveliest thing I have ever 
seen in my life. And yet — ” she paused, smiling at 
Mrs. Dines with something of embarrassment in her 
expression. 

“I believe I can guess what is in your mind, 
madam,” said Captain Sparshot. “You are secretly 
agreeing with me that three -and -twenty thousand 
pounds — only think ! three - and - twenty thousand 
pounds,” he repeated, slowly and emphatically, “ is a 
sight too much money to lock up in an ornament, see- 
ing what the needs of the world are.” 

Mrs. Dines snapped to the lid of her case. “ I don’t 
want to hear any sermins, Capting Sparshot. I like 
them as little as I do your navigation, as you calls 
it,” said she. “ I know your views ; I don’t object to 
them. On the contrary, if I didn’t know you to be a 
humane man I shouldn’t be here. I suppose there are 
poor folks in Sydney as there are elsewhere, and I be- 
lieve,” she continued, w T ith a little toss of her head, 
“ that me and Mr. Dines aren’t considered less chari- 
table than our neighbors.” 


52 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


“ Captain Sparshot has not exactly expressed my 
thoughts,” said Mrs. Wreathock. “ Indeed, I do not 
agree with him. People have a perfect right to spend 
their money as they choose. Besides, I have heard 
my poor husband say that money spent in diamonds 
is often well invested. Suppose diamonds should rise 
in value, Captain Sparshot. Mrs. Dines might be able 
to get thirty thousand pounds for what she paid 
twenty- three thousand for. What profit would that 
make? Seven thousand pounds. Mrs. Dines, on a 
profit of seven thousand pounds you could afford to 
be as bountiful to the poor as even Captain Sparshot 
could wish.” 

“ Lor’ ! but I wish I could talk as well as you, Mrs. 
Wreathock,” said Mrs. Dines. “ But there’s your an- 
swer, Capting Sparshot, anyway.” 

The Captain felt that he had said enough, and gazed 
in silence at Mrs. Dines. 

“ You paused in your speech, Mrs. Wreathock,” said 
Mrs. Dines, “and Capting Sparshot misrepresented 
you. Now, what was you about to say ?” 

“ Oh, merely this. That beautiful as your necklace 
is, far more beautiful than anything of the sort that 
ever I have seen, my first impression is one of disap- 
pointment. But why ? Probably because the descrip- 
tion you gave me of the necklace, and the price you 
told me you had paid for it, caused me to create an 
ideal necklace, something to the fancy more rich and 
splendid than perhaps anything that is to be found on 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


53 

earth. If the necklace were mine, or if I were to see 
it often, its true worth would steal in upon me. I 
should understand its real magnificence, and find it 
grander than the imagination of it which your de- 
scription excited.’’ She turned with a charming smile 
to Captain Sparshot, who stood listening with admir- 
ing attention. “ Some author — perhaps you will be 
able to give me his name, Captain Sparshot — ” 

“ I am sorry to say — ” interrupted Sparshot, stam- 
mering ; “ but let’s hear what the gentleman did ; per- 
haps I may know him.” 

“ He did nothing. He merely made a remark which 
bears out what I have said about Mrs. Dines’s neck- 
lace. He went to view Niagara Falls, and he said 
that at the first glance he was disappointed. He had 
expected to see more water ; to hear a more wonder- 
ful sound of thunder; but he had not stood looking 
long when the reality grew upon him, and then he 
witnessed a majesty far greater than ever his imag- 
ination could have put before him, though that imag- 
ination had been the cause of his immediate disap- 
pointment.” 

“ Lor’, Mrs.Wreathock, what would I give to be able 
to talk like you ! Yes, I’d give this necklace, I would 
indeed,” said Mrs. Dines, handing the parcel to Cap- 
tain Sparshot, wdio replaced it in his safe. 

Captain Sparshot, having replaced the jewels in his 
safe, carefully locked the massive iron door, put the 
keys into the drawer whence he had taken them, 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS; 


54 

locked the drawer, and pocketed the bunch of keys to 
which the key of the drawer was attached. Mrs. 
Wreathock thanked him for the entertainment his 
discourse on navigation had provided her wdth, and 
she also thanked Mrs. Dines for allowing her to view 
the magnificent necklace. She then asked that lady 
to accompany her for a turn on deck, and they both 
quitted the Captain’s cabin, Sparshot holding open the 
door, and bowing low rather in the direction of Mrs. 
Wreathock than of Mrs. Dines, as the ladies stepped 
forth. 


CHAPTER V. 


OFF FUNCHAL. 

Fkom the latitude of about 44° N., which fairly in- 
dicates the situation of the ship when such of the pas- 
sengers as were sea-sick found themselves better and 
appeared on deck, down to the latitude of about 34°, 
the Southern Cross met with nothing but genial weath- 
er — with skies which every day brightened into a 
clearer azure, with fresh and favorable winds which 
every day grew warmer, with a sun whose heat, when 
he had fairly climbed over the foreyard, demanded 
the shelter of the awning. 

Captain Sparshot had no doubt whatever that his 
ship would be at anchor off Funchal well within the 
ten days which he had named to Major Stopford- 
Creake. 

Nothing in any way noteworthy happened. Some- 
times a ship steamed or sailed past, and the ladies 
would be entertained by an interesting display of sig- 
nal flags. The deck quoit was introduced, and the 
harmless sport of heaving it formed the chief diver- 
sion of Mr. Winthrop, Miss de la Taste, and the two 
Miss Sparkeses. The Major was reserved ; he pro- 
fessed to dislike cards, and could never be coaxed into 


56 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


taking a hand; he was somewhat short in his an- 
swers ; spoke little at the table, had next to nothing 
to say even to the Captain himself, and was generally 
disliked, but not despised ; on the contrary, the person 
he condescended to accost usually felt flattered, and 
the more he held aloof the more wistful grew the 
secret respect of his fellow-passengers ; but behind his 
back he was called a snob by the men, and a stuck-up, 
conceited person by the women. 

But his sister made amends for his disagreeable be- 
havior. She was kind and gentle with all ; Mrs. Dines 
declared she had never met with a more lovable wom- 
an, and the stewardess told Pittar that in all her time 
— and she had spent some years at sea, and attended 
upon many people — she had never had “ to do ” with 
so interesting, polished, and perfect a lady. Sparshot 
paid her marked attention. Every captain of an ocean- 
going passenger vessel has a favorite lady passenger. 
It is true selections of this sort are not wise ; jealousy 
is excited, and murmurs will be heard ; but, as a rule, 
the saloon accepts the captain’s favorite lady pas- 
senger as a detail of ocean routine, as an inevitable 
condition of getting from one part of the world to 
another. Sparshot’s favorite w r as the Honorable Mrs. 
Wreathock, and even Miss de la Taste could not 
deny that the charming young widow’s social position 
justified in the behavior of Sparshot a degree of re- 
spect and attention which ought not to be looked for 
in him by people who, though their families might be 


MKS. dines*s jewels. 


57 


never so old — and it is needless to say, perhaps, that 
Miss de la Taste went back to the Conquest — were 
not members of the aristocracy. 

Mrs. Wreathock, having received one lesson in navi- 
gation, was so well pleased that she asked for more ; 
and until the weather changed, and until it came on 
to blow when Madeira was still some two or three 
degrees to the southward, she was often with the 
Captain in his cabin, hearkening to him with flatter- 
ing interest while he discoursed on the uses to which 
the mariner put the sun, moon, and stars. It will not, 
of course, be supposed that on these occasions she 
was alone with Sparshot. Once Mrs. du Boulay was 
her companion, another time it might be the elder 
Miss Sparkes, or on a third visit she would be attend- 
ed by Mrs. Eden ; Mrs. Dines, however, could not be 
induced to attend again. 

The interest that Mrs. Wreathock took in listening 
to the Captain’s explanations of the art of navigation 
naturally caused some talk at first; but gossip was 
silenced by the assurance of the ladies who accompa- 
nied the widow, that Sparshot’s remarks and illustra- 
tions were extremely instructive and amusing; and 
that they all hoped, long before they were up with 
the Cape, to know as much about the science of con- 
ducting a ship through the ocean as Mr. Parr, the 
chief officer, or Mr. Sampson, the second mate. 

By this time it was known that Major the Honor- 
able Sebastian Stopford-Creake was the second son of 


58 


MRS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


the late Lord Horncastle, who had married twice, 
having by his second wife Fanny, whose husband, 
Julius Wreathock, had held a commission in a crack 
regiment. This discovery had been made by Mr. 
Winthrop while smoking a cigar one evening under 
the break of the poop. He had been joined by Major 
Stopford-Creake, who, after praising some claret that 
had been put upon the table at dinner, seem disposed 
to be communicative. One topic of conversation led 
to another, and before the two gentlemen’s cigars 
were smoked out Mr. Winthrop was in possession of 
the Major’s family history. 

Captain Sparshot proved to be very much out in 
his calculation of ten days to Madeira. When the 
Southern Cross was within two days’ sail of the island 
it came on to blow strong from the southward — right 
in the ship’s teeth, in short — which compelled the 
skipper to slant away for Madeira, first on one tack, 
and then on the other, under reduced canvas, with 
sobbing scuppers, and the weather side of the fore- 
castle dark and gleaming with the spray that burst 
over the bow as the brave ship shouldered the hard, 
green surge, sweeping it into dim rainbows to the 
watery winking of the sun amid the breaks of the 
flying vapor on high. 

In fact, it was not until the dawn of a day that 
brought the time to sixteen days from the date of the 
ship’s departure from Gravesend that the island of 
Madeira hove into view, right on a line with the 


MllS. DINES^S JEWELS. 


59 


Southern Cross's flying jib-boom end. The ship was 
then pitching over a high swell, with square yards 
and a main-royal set, doing some eight knots in the 
hour, so that all hands might reckon on having 
Funchal abreast by three or four o’clock in the after- 
noon. 

The appearance of land somewhat excited the pas- 
sengers. When they came up after breakfast, and 
beheld the blue mass of Madeira and the dim blotch- 
es of the adjacent rocks right ahead, they stared as 
though they had kept the sea for years. 

“ One can tell how dull and monotonous travelling 
by ocean is,” said Mrs. Wreathock to Mrs. Dines, as 
they stood together looking at the land, “ by the re- 
freshing break the sight of that island makes.” 

“ Dull it is,” said Mrs. Dines, “ and dull you’ll find 
it before we gets to Sydney. I ought to have taken 
steam. Contrairy winds don’t signify when you have 
steam. Not that I’m in a hurry. Dines knows where 
I am, and a right-minded husband can never ask more 
of his wife. It’s the doctor’s doing. My physician, 
Dr. Tankard, is the cleverest gentleman of his calling 
in all Australia, and he wouldn’t let me off under 
nine months. ‘ Doctor,’ I says, ‘ surely, going to Eng- 
land in a sailing ship and returning in a steamer ’ll be 
enough?’ ‘No, Mrs. Dines,’ he says, ‘I know your 
constitution, and have made a study of you. Nine 
months, if you please, or fatty degeneration, which 
is a ’eart trouble.’ Shall you go ashore at Madeery ?” 


60 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


Mrs. Wreathock answered that unless the ship were 
detained for some days she should not go ashore. 
She hated excursions which lasted a few hours only. 
They were merely tantalizing, and left no other im- 
pression than disappointment. 

“ You’ll give me the pleasure of your company 
ashore?” said Mrs. Dines. “Even if the ship don’t 
stop longer than an hour I’d go, if only for the sake 
of sitting in an arm-chair that doesn’t rock, and walk- 
ing on ground that ain’t continuously sloping first 
this way and then that.” 

The swell sank as the ship neared the island, the 
breeze blew languidly ; but the Southern Cross had a 
clipper run, and by lunch-time the island lay clearly 
distinguishable by the naked eye ; many points of its 
rich and fertile beauty visible, w r ith a black electric 
cloud spitting fire over one corner of it, while the 
sunlight flashed up the vapor that crawled about 
other parts, as though the island were a volcanic 
heap and steam were breaking from its summits. 
Softly and steadily the Southern Cross floated on- 
ward to the impulse of her wide-spread pinions, for 
Sparshot, anxious to bring up before sundown, had 
sent his studding-sails aloft, and the ship w T as clothed 
from water-way to truck with gleaming cloths swell- 
ing and sinking like breathing breasts far beyond the 
sides of the vessel. 

Major Stopford-Creake stood at the rail, where he 
commanded a good view of the island. He grasped 


MBS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


61 


the handsome telescope that belonged to Captain 
Sparshot, and constantly raised and held it steady at 
his eye, gazing with something of a thirsty expression 
of countenance, as though the spectacle of the beau- 
tiful island was gradually impassioning his desire to 
get ashore, and behold closely the loveliness that ap- 
peared to enchant him at a distance. Suddenly he 
let sink the telescope and looked around at his sister, 
who stood by the side of some ladies. 

She approached him with a careless air and, pausing 
beside him, murmured, “ Do you see her ?” 

He answered “Yes” in a low voice; then, raising 
his tones, bade her admire the vivid verdure of the 
island, and the contrast of the manifold rich colors of 
the whole mass with the light - blue surface of the 
brine that steeped to the base of the rocks. He then 
held the telescope for her to look through, pointing 
it at the town of Funchal, the ivory -like structures 
of which had by this time risen above the horizon 
and were hovering upon the sea-line, resembling, to 
an eye gazing from the poop of the Southern Cross , 
the head of a short scope of breaker in the act of dis- 
solving into foam. Mrs. Wreathock looked through 
the glass, and while she looked her lips moved softly 
with the delivery of a few sentences inaudible to the 
two or three people who were standing near. She 
then returned to the ladies she had quitted, and point- 
ed to the beauties of the island with an animation 
which heightened the color in her cheeks, and which 


62 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


fired her eyes with a brightness that was not to be 
witnessed in the most brilliant of the gems which 
flashed upon the fingers of Mrs. Dines. 

There were four or five vessels lying off Funchal. 
One was a British man-of-war, a fine steam corvette, 
which, as the Southern Cross approached, got her an- 
chor and slowly steamed away into the south-east, 
the crimson cross fluttering at her peak, her yards 
braced to a hair, her glossy sides reflecting the rip- 
pling lustre in the water, and the gilt about her stern 
and quarters discharging a red and sulky flash at the 
westering sun as though a gun had been fired there. 
The vessels which remained at anchor were small 
craft — a bark of some three hundred tons, a clumsy 
bit of a brigantine deep laden, an old hulk that in its 
day, for all one could tell, might have been one of 
the smartest of the Honorable East India Company’s 
ships* and not far from the hulk lay a steam-yacht, 
a craft of about a hundred and forty tons, heavily 
rigged as a schooner, with a yellow funnel close abaft 
the foremast. 

The Southern Cross drove slowly into the bay with 
her canvas clewing up, hands aloft rolling up the 
lighter sails, her decks lively with the running figures 
of seamen and of steerage passengers willing to help 
and getting very much in the way of the sailors, and 
the air was noisy with the “ yeo heave-hoing ” which 
the merchant Johnny finds a pleasure in bawling 
from the depths of his leathern lungs whenever an 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


63 


order from the poop or quarter-deck gives him an 
excuse for singing out. Sparshot, aft, delivered his 
commands with sailorly vehemence and swiftness, and 
equally sailorly were the orders given by Mr. Parr, 
the chief officer, who stood upon the forecastle super- 
intending the ground-tackle, and seeing all ready for 
letting go the anchor. Then, when everybody had 
been told to stand clear of the chain cable, the anchor 
was let go: it fell with a mighty plunge, and the 
chain roared in the hawse-pipe as the links were torn 
through it by the vast weight of iron. 

In a few minutes the Southern Cross had swung, 
had tautened her cable, and was lying quietly at rest, 
softly swaying upon the summer heave of the waters 
flowing in a delicate swell into the bay. 

But though the ship rested quietly, her decks were 
clamorous. A number of boats had gathered along- 
side, and many repulsive - looking, tawny people, a 
number of them in rags and tatters, yet all of them 
bearing commodities for sale, had dexterously crept 
over the rail, while alongside were crowds of nude 
boys screaming up to the ship in barbarous English 
for people to throw money into the sea that they 
might dive. Major Stopford-Creake stood at the head 
of the starboard poop -ladder looking down at the 
boats that were clustered about the gangway. The 
captain had disappeared. An agent had arrived on 
board, and there was business to be transacted below. 
The passengers moved about the poop staring at the 


64 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


island, or at the ugly curiosity dealers who had come 
off to the ship from it. The main-deck was full of 
people; everybody was in motion, and everybody 
seemed to be talking or laughing. 

Suddenly the Major, with a smile of recognition, de- 
scended the poop-ladder, and, making his way through 
the people who were congregated upon the quarter- 
deck, advanced to the gangway, in which stood a 
man who only a minute before had arrived alongside 
in a boat. 

This man was dressed in seafaring clothes, and was 
undoubtedly a sailor. He wore a naval peak to his 
cap, a monkey-jacket, blue cloth trousers, and canvas 
shoes. His face was heavy and coarse, his lower lip 
was underhung, and revealed a few stumps of tobacco- 
blackened teeth ; his jaw r s w r ere square, he was without 
hair on his face, and his flesh looked as though it had 
been stained with strawberry - juice. He had the 
aspect of a prize-fighter. He was even more broadly 
and firmly set upon his legs than Captain Sparshot ; 
but his gaze was steadfast, direct, and singularly honest. 

He stood at the gangway staring about him ; but 
on seeing Major Stopford-Creake he smiled and re- 
spectfully touched his cap. 

“Well, Captain Brine, here we are at last !” said the 
Major. 

“ Yes, sir ; glad to see you, 55 answered Brine, in a 
strong, salt voice ; “ it’s bin a pretty middling long 
passage to the island, h’ant it ?” 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


65 


“ Head winds ; nothing but head winds for the la^t 
few days, 5 ’ answered the Major, whose manner of ad- 
dressing Brine was much more easy and familiar than 
his manner of addressing his fellow- passengers. 

“ She’s a fine vessel,” exclaimed Brine, looking up at 
the towering height of mast and along the decks of 
the ship. “I noticed her bows and run as I came 
along. A cool twelve with a top-gallant breeze and 
anything like smooth water, I’ll warrant. It may 
prove a job, and so I tell ye straight, sir.” 

“ We must take our chance,” said the Major, after a 
pause, looking thoughtfully at the man Brine, whom 
he had called captain, and then sending a swift, keen 
glance up at the poop as though he would see whether 
he was observed. 

But the passengers were busy with the curiosity 
dealers, or occupied in looking over the side watching 
the dingy-skinned lads diving and quarrelling. Every- 
body was engaged in chatting and laughing. Mrs. 
Wreathock and Mrs. Dines stood at the aftermost end 
of the poop viewing the land. The mates moved here 
and there, seeing the ship snug and everything right 
for the night. It was now about a quarter to six 
o’clock, and dinner would not be served in the saloon 
till half -past six. The rich light of the sunset was in 
the air, and every point of beauty submitted by the 
island gathered a fresh accentuation of loveliness from 
the splendors of the western sky. The wreaths of 
vapor creeping about the mountain brows were flush- 


66 


MRS. DINES ? S JEWELS. 


ed with a pink tincture, and the stare of the white 
houses of the town was softened by the orange -hued 
atmosphere that slept upon their seaward - looking 
faces, for now all the wind was gone, and the water 
rolled, gleaming, with silk - like smoothness, to the 
land. 

“ Where’s the lady, sir ?” inquired Brine, directing a 
look of curiosity at such of the passengers as were 
visible. 

“She was on deck not long ago,” answered the 
Major, rising on his toes the better to command the 
length of the poop, which, as you know, is a raised 
deck. “ I don’t see her. But no matter. I shall be 
introducing you to her before long, Captain Brine, I 
hope.” 

“ There is a good spread of mizzen channel, sir,” said 
Brine. “ I obsarved that as I came along. It’s lucky. 
It will give the lady a first-rate chance. Without them 
platforms you’d find it ’ud come tidy awkward for her, 
and maybe a bit awkward for yourself, sir,” he added, 
casting a glance over the figure of the Major. 

“Well, Captain Brine, here you are, and my mind 
is at rest. I have been anxious. I have thought to 
myself, ‘ Suppose when we arrive Captain Brine should 
not be here . 5 But here you are : so all’s well so far. 
I will not offer you anything.” 

“Thank you kindly; I require nothing, sir. Best 
not stop too long aboard perhaps. I shall pull for the 
shore when I go, so there can be no guessing, you see. 


MBS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


67 


Thought I’d come and report myself, sir. The ar- 
rangements, of course, stand as they were ?” 

“ Exactly as they were,” said the Major. “ The sig- 
nal agreed upon is the signal to be made. Keep a 
sharp lookout, Captain Brine, and don’t fail me.” 

“ I’ll not be failing ye, sir,” exclaimed Brine, with a 
note of heartiness in his voice. “ But of course ye’ll 
contrive that the signal’s made at a hopportunity 
which won’t give me an excuse for failing ye.” 

On this the Major addressed some sentences to him 
in a very low voice, and Captain Brine nodded contin- 
uously as he listened. When the Major had ended 
Brine said : 

“ That’s as it was agreed, and you leave me alone 
not to make a mistake, sir. Only ye must remember 
that at sea weather’s weather — ” 

“ I must take my chance,” interrupted the Major, 
uttering these words for the second time. 

“As I was saying,” continued Brine, “weather’s 
weather at sea in a way that it ain’t weather ashore. 
That’s to be allowed for. I must say,” he went on, di- 
recting another groping look, so to speak, at the pas- 
sengers who were on the poop, “ that I should have 
liked to catch just one sight of the lady afore I go. 
Well, I wish your honor good - afternoon. I don’t 
know, I am sure, how long ye’ll be detained here. 
But I dare say what the ship is come for will be let- 
ting her get her anchor up by to-morrow evening.” 

With a final look in the direction of the poop, Cap- 


68 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


tain Brine touched his cap and, descending the gang- 
way ladder, entered a dingy rowed by a single pair 
of oars, and the Major stood in the gangway watching 
with a thoughtful face the little boat as she pulled in 
the direction of Funchal. 


CHAPTER VI. 


A FRESH START. 

Shortly after Major Stopford-Creake left the gang- 
way, where he had stood watching the small dingy 
containing Captain Brine making in the direction 
of Funchal, Captain Sparshot, accompanied by a gen- 
tleman, came out of the saloon, descended the lad- 
der, and entering the boat was rowed with his com- 
panion to the island. But apparently nobody else 
belonging to the ship had gone ashore. At the din- 
ner-hour all the passengers assembled as usual at the 
tables, and the only difference in the old arrangement 
was that Mr. Parr, the chief officer, occupied the Cap- 
tain’s chair, while the second mate, Mr. Sampson, took 
Mr. Parr’s seat. 

Mrs. Wreathock dwelt with delight upon the beau- 
ties of the Island of Madeira as beheld from the sea. 

“ I deeply deplore,” she exclaimed, gazing at Mr. 
Parr with eyes that seemed to swim, “ that my dear 
husband did not carry out his resolution of wintering 
in this lovely spot. The climate might have saved 
his life.” 

“How long is the ship going to stop here?” said 
Mrs. Dines. 


70 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


“ I certainly hope we shall be able to get away to- 
morrow afternoon,” answered Mr. Parr. “ The wine 
should be alongside early in the morning, and it is not 
going to be in such quantity, I hope, as to occupy us 
all day in swinging it aboard.” 

“Does the Captain sleep ashore?” inquired the 
Major. 

“No, sir,” responded the mate. 

“ I am glad to hear it,” said the Major. “A master 
of a vessel has no business to leave his ship all night 
— I mean a ship situated as the Southern Cross is, with 
nothing to depend upon but an anchor or two and, 
perhaps, a defective chain, should a gale spring up.” 

“ Mr. Parr has a master’s certificate,” said Mr. du 
Boulay. 

“ So he ought to,” said Mrs. Dines. “ If I had my 
way no ship should put to sea with less than three 
captings. Suppose the only capting of a ship should 
die or go mad, or lose his sight ; what then ? There’d 
be ne’er a navigator in the forecastle; the common 
sailors would take advantage and rise, and what then, 
I say?” 

She toyed with the coins at her waist, causing the 
pieces to chatter like sovereigns shovelled on a bank 
counter, while she looked along the fine of faces to 
observe the effect of her words. Then fixing her eyes 
on Mrs. Wreathock, she said: 

“You’ll come ashore with me to-morrow, I hope — 
you and the Major there. There’s a good hotel, I’ve 


MRS. DINERS JEWELS. 


71 


heard, and we’ll view the sights, see the Portuguee 
military, and the cathedral, and have a nice little 
champagne lunch all to ourselves before the ship 
sails. Lord knows,” she added, with energy, “we 
want some such a change after sixteen days of toss- 
ing and tumbling !” 

Mrs. Wreathock thanked her in her sweetest man- 
ner, and said that she did not think she would go on 
shore. She did not like the idea of entering a small 
boat. She did not like the idea of absenting herself 
from the ship which might sail without her. Other 
things which she mentioned she did not like the idea 
of either ; and so very prettily, and with an air of per- 
fect good - breeding, she made her excuses to Mrs. 
Dines, while the other passengers exchanged looks 
with here and there a half -concealed sneer, one or two 
of them thinking, perhaps, to emphasize their private 
opinion of Mrs. Dines by staring at the jewelry she 
wore. 

When dinner was over, everybody went on deck to 
breathe the soft air. It was a very clear night, the 
sky was brilliant with stars, under which here and 
there floated a steam - colored body of vapor which 
moved so slowly that the motion seemed that of the 
stars. There would be no moon till nine or ten o’clock. 
It was a pity that the satellite’s magic pencils of light 
should be wanting, for never does the Island of Madeira 
show more sweetly, with a more dream-like fairy beau- 
ty as it sleeps upon the ocean, than by moonlight, when 


72 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


its curling vapors are transmuted into silver, and when 
scintillant wreaths dwell upon the soaring heads of 
the hills as though they were crowned by some god- 
dess of the deep. 

This fine fancy was Mrs. Wreathock’s, who softly 
spoke it to Mrs. Dines while lamenting the tardy ap- 
proach of the moon. 

“ I don’t know nothing about goddesses,” was Mrs. 
Dines’s plain, sober -headed answer. “All I wish is 
that I was in an ’otel among them lights there — snug 
in an arm-chair that don’t rock, and able to go to bed 
without being rolled as if you was a cask a-lowering 
into the cellar of a public-’ ouse.” 

The lights sparkled in a galaxy where the town lay 
at the base of the dark mass of land. At intervals of 
silence the voice of the Atlantic breaker, beating along 
the rocky line of shore, stole through the air in a low 
note of thunder. Some sailors were singing songs 
aboard the bark that swayed shadowily at a few 
cables’ length from the Southern Cross . Here and 
there the oars of a boat in motion chipped fire out of 
the water like sparks from flint ; and so smooth was 
the sea that the reflection of a large and lovely star, 
shining over the mizzen-top-sail yard-arm, rested like a 
silver coin in the polished indigo surface, and you 
might have seen the image of the star stretching and 
shrinking as though it were a jelly-fish as the noise- 
less swell underran it. 

Major Stopford-Creake, after having paced the deck 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


73 


with his sister at his side for some twenty minutes or 
so, left her, and descended to the quarter-deck. He 
lighted a cigar, and stood smoking in the recess that 
was formed by the projection of the Captain’s cabin 
on the port side, and the projection of the mates’ cab- 
ins on the starboard side. The saloon lamps burned 
brightly, but the interior was empty. The quarter- 
deck was deserted; there was, however, a crowd of 
steerage passengers and sailors on the forecastle, and 
a few people conversed in the dark shadows round 
about the galley. 

After the Major had been smoking for a few min- 
utes, a man came along the deck towards the saloon. 
When he w T as within the sheen of the lamp-light flow- 
ing through the open door of the saloon, the Major 
perceived that he was one of the stewards. 

“Has the Captain returned?” exclaimed the Major. 

“ I don’t think so, sir ; I have not seen him,” an- 
swered the man. 

“ I wish to speak to him,” said the Major. “ See if 
he is in his cabin.” 

“ He is not likely to be there, sir,” said the man ; 
“ his cabin’s in darkness,” he added, making a step to 
command the forward-looking window of the berth. 

“ Knock and ascertain,” said the Major. 

The man did so, and received no answer. 

“ Try the handle of the door,” said the Major. 

The man hesitated. 

“ Try the handle of the door, I tell you,” repeated 


74 


MRS. DINES s JEWELS. 


the Major, in a subdued, but stern and commanding 
voice. 

The man obeyed, and exclaimed, “ It is locked, sir.” 

“Oh!” said the Major, and, tossing his cigar over- 
board, he went on to the poop. 

Captain Sparshot came off to the ship while four 
bells — ten o’clock — was striking upon her deck. But 
though the Major 'was on the poop at the time when 
Sparshot arrived on board, he did not advance to meet 
him as a man would who had something very partic- 
ular to say to a person after whom he had been inquir- 
ing. IS* or, though he sat with Sparshot at one of the 
saloon tables until five bells had struck, drinking cold 
whiskey- and- water, did he once hint at the subject 
which, an hour or so before, had so weighed upon his 
mind as to induce him to order an under-steward to 
try the door of the Captain’s berth. 

Well, as Mr. Parr had promised or predicted, early 
next morning a quantity of the wine of the island 
consigned to Australia came alongside. Mrs. Dines 
and others of the passengers wished to go ashore. 
Sparshot regretted to inform them that he feared there 
would not be time. 

“Why,” said Mrs. Dines, “you said we was to lie 
here for two or three days !” 

“ Everything was in readiness for our arrival,” said 
the Captain. “ I had thought to find a slackness 
ashore. But our long passage has given the people 
plenty of time. Then, again, how was I to guess the 


MRS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


75 


state of the weather ? For all I could have foreseen, 
we might have been detained here a week waiting for 
the weather to allow us to ship the goods.” 

‘The wine, however, was not got aboard and stowed 
until after two o’clock in the afternoon ; but scarcely 
had the last of it been passed over the ship’s side 
when the boatswain’s cheerful pipe sang through the 
ship, and in a few minutes twenty powerful throats 
were roaring out a sea chorus to the accompaniment 
of the clanking of the windlass, and the gritting noise 
of links of chain-cable coming slowly in through the 
rusty hawse-pipe. 

It was a gloriously beautiful afternoon ; a fine sail- 
ing breeze blew out of the north-east, and the water 
that was filled with the light of the high sun trembled 
to the whipping of the breeze, and it shone down to its 
distant opalescent rim as though the sky were a bound- 
less prism whose rich and shifting tints were reflected 
in it. Never did the Island of Madeira look more beau- 
tiful; never did the houses of Funchal gleam with a 
sharper light of ivory whiteness. Mrs. Dines and those 
who had wished to go ashore gazed wistfully ; but there 
was nothing to be said ; everybody was anxious to get 
to Sydney, and, therefore, the briefer the detention 
at Madeira the better, spite of the blow which the 
promptitude of the shippers had dealt the desires of 
Mrs. Dines and others of the passengers. 

The cable came in smartly : Mr. Parr, standing on 
the cathead, roared out to Sparshot, “ Hove short, sir !” 


76 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


a number of hands sprang aloft on all three masts, and 
the windlass was deserted that the top-sails might be 
sheeted home and the yards mast-headed. Then the 
windlass was manned afresh, and the anchor lifted out 
of its bed of ooze, and presently the Southern Cross was 
heading away clear of the island into the south and 
west, with bladder -like canvas rapidly soaring into 
symmetric spaces, and with the red ensign of her na- 
tion descending from the gaff end, at which it had 
been flying all the morning. 

Shortly after the fine ship had got her anchor and 
proceeded on her voyage, a schooner-rigged yacht with 
a yellow funnel — the craft, in short, to which reference 
has previously been made — manned her windlass and 
made all sail. Her crew were evidently an active body 
of fellows ; they heaped canvas upon their little ship 
with a despatch that was almost man-of-war like, and 
very speedily the steamer was gliding past the island 
with her head directed a point or two westward of the 
course pursued by the Southern Cross. 

The spectacle of a vessel — and of so small a vessel as 
the steam-yacht — leaving the anchorage much about 
the time at which the Southern Cross started, and steer- 
ing for the deep solitude of the Atlantic Ocean almost 
in the direction taken by the Australian liner, natural- 
ly excited some interest among Sparshot’s passengers. 

“Why did she wait for us?” said Mr. Winthrop. 
“ Why didn’t she start sooner or later ?” 

“ Perhaps she means to keep us company for the 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


77 


sake of safety,” said Mr. Eden. “ She is but a bit of 
a vessel compared to our ship.” 

“ Maybe she means to race us,” exclaimed Mr. du 
Boulay. “ I hope so. There is nothing more interest- 
ing than an ocean race. But, Heaven bless me ! what 
chance will she stand if she sticks to her canvas only?” 
and here Mr. du Boulay gazed up at the spacious spread 
of sail that was now heeling the Southern Cross , and 
driving her through the water with a line of milky soft- 
ness behind her, the fan-shaped tail of which seemed 
to simmer to the very base of the island astern. 

“ Where do you think she is going ?” said Mrs. Dines 
to the Captain, who stood looking at the yacht. 

“Why, perhaps to the West Indies,” answered Cap- 
tain Sparshot ; “ though if she keeps all on as she now 
heads her destination will be a Brazilian port.” 

“ You should get your husband to buy you a yacht, 
Mrs. Dines,” said Mrs. Sparkes. 

“ He ain’t well enough off,” answered Mrs. Dines ; 
whereat there was a sound of quiet laughing. 

“Come and let me take a walk with you,” said Mrs. 
Dines to Mrs. Wreathock, and she passed her hand 
under the fair young widow’s arm as she spoke. “ It’s 
charity to give me an excuse to get away from them 
people. I am as God made me, and, praise the Lord, 
I am without pretensions. But I hate to be snig- 
gered at. If Dines were here — but he is not here, and 
so what’s the use of wishing. Between you and me 
and the bedpost, Mrs. Wreathock, I mean to say just 


78 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


as little as I can possibly help to what I suppose I 
must call my fellow-passengers.” 

Mrs. Wreathock replied with some sentences full of 
sympathy and kindness, and the two ladies paced the 
deck. 

“ You see what that vulgar woman is aiming at,” 
softly said Mrs. du Boulay to Miss de la Taste. “ There 
will be a good deal heard of Mrs. Dines’s aristocratic 
friends after we arrive at Sydney, you mark. But I 
don’t think the Major is to be very easily won over by 
our friend. Do you observe a sort of sneer upon his 
face as he stands there now at this moment looking at 
his sister and her companion? I should not be sur- 
prised if he obliged Mrs. Wreathock to give Mrs. Dines 
the cut direct when they have landed. That is how 
people of breeding usually serve folks of the Dines’s 
sort when they have done with them.” 

“ I can only wonder at Mrs. Wreathock’s amiabil- 
ity,” said Miss de la Taste. 

And now the passengers, having seen as much of the 
yacht as interested them, broke up and moved here 
and there, some going below. The Island of Madeira 
lay in a pale azure heap astern, every feature of the 
land rapidly dimming in the blue gush of the steady 
breeze. No more land, as the passengers might sup- 
pose, was to heave in sight this side of the Sydney 
Heads; the vessel had already settled down for her 
long run half way round the world, and the dull me- 
chanical routine of shipboard, the heavy spirit of mo- 


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MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


79 


notony proceeding from the life of the deep, was ah 
ready to be felt throughout the vessel’s length, and 
witnessed in every visage the eyes encountered — strong 
in its assertion as though no break of a day and night 
had happened. 

“ That yacht seems to have heels, Mr. Parr,” said the 
Captain, stepping up to his chief officer, who stood 
near Major Stopford-Creake at the forward end of the 
poop-deck looking at the steamer. “ She is making a 
more westerly course than ourselves, but she has fore- 
gathered upon us for all that.” 

“She shows a tremendous spread of canvas, sir,” 
said Mr. Parr. “ I never before saw so long a head to 
a fore-and-aft main-sail.” 

“ She must be using her engines, don’t you think, 
Captain Sparshot ?” exclaimed the Major, approaching 
the skipper by a stride. “ Otherwise it’s not to be 
supposed that a vessel of her size could hold her own 
with such a ship as this.” 

• “ She may have her fires banked,” said Sparshot. 
“ I see no smoke. I don’t think her engines are work- 
ing. She will be an auxiliary, I expect.” 

“ That’s just what you will find her, sir,” said Mr. 
Parr. “ She is not going to drag a propeller along 
with her, at that rate.” 

“ Is she a private yacht, do you think ?” asked the 
Major. 

“ She has the look of one,” answered the Captain. 
“ She is no trader, anyhow and he then changed the 


80 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


subject by expressing his regret that time had not 
permitted of his escorting Major Stopford-Creake and 
Mrs. Wreathock ashore. 

By sundown the yacht had run her hull out of sight 
behind the sea to windward of and directly abreast of 
the Southern Cross — that is, “ dead abeam,’ 5 as sailors 
would say ; but it seemed tolerably clear to those who 
gave the matter a thought that the yacht, having put 
herself hull down, had then shifted her helm for a 
course parallel with that of the Australian liner. For 
she was visible against the last dim lingering glow of 
sunset — that is to say, she was visible from about mid- 
way the height of her canvas ; and she showed in a 
blot against the rustic tinge of hectic ; and her appear- 
ance then was no bigger or smaller than it had been 
for some time, proving that she was steering as the ship 
steered, and that, if her destination was the West In- 
dies, as Captain Sparshot had suggested, her skipper 
was several points off his course. 


CHAPTER VII. 


KEEPING COMPANY. 

And now for some days nothing in any degree re- 
markable occurred ; nothing save this — if, indeed, a 
familiar detail of ocean life can be called remarkable — 
that before a couple of days had elapsed, dating from 
the hour of the Southern Cross’s departure from Ma- 
deira, it was to be clearly understood that the steam- 
yacht, which had weighed shortly after the Australian 
liner had proceeded, was keeping her company. 

There was, as has been said, nothing remarkable in 
this. In those days, far more often than in these, ships 
again and again sailed the ocean in pairs. If it hap- 
pened that two vessels were leaving port at the same 
time, their captains would agree to keep in sight of 
each other, and several examples of extraordinary de- 
liverances from frightful perils could be given as illus- 
trations of the usefulness of this sort of neighborly 
navigation. 

In all probability the yacht, instead of being bound 
to the West Indies or to the Brazils as Sparshot had 
conjectured, was making the voyage to the Cape, or 
perhaps farther eastward still. Her captain would be 
very well pleased to sail in company with such a big, 
6 


82 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


well-found ship as the Southern Cross . He might want 
to compare chronometers ; he might run short of water ; 
his crew might be weakened by sickness ; he might be 
dismasted— in fact, one of the hundred maritime diffi- 
culties might happen to him; in which case there 
would be a large ship within the compass of the 
yacht’s horizon to signal to and obtain help from. 

All this the Captain and mates and saloon passen- 
gers of the Southern Cross perfectly understood ; noth- 
ing was unintelligible but the distance the steamer 
kept, as though she coquetted with the big ship, some- 
times steering until from the cross-trees of the South- 
ern Cross no more than a fragment of her top-mast 
canvas was to be distinguished hovering like a butter- 
fly over the edge of the ocean in the far-off windy 
blue; and sometimes heading until she had risen her 
square -sail to its clews. That she could sail faster 
than the Southern Cross was certain. She kept her 
position abeam of the ship as persistently as though 
she had been a man-of-war convoying the liner to her 
destination. The weather, of course, suffered this; 
but if she meant to hold the Southern Cross in sight, 
it remained to be seen what her commander would do 
should it come on to blow or thick weather set in. 

The yacht was, naturally, though occasionally only, 
a subject of conversation on board the Southern Cross . 
She was in sight on the morning of the third day — 
always dating from the departure from the island. 
All the passengers were on deck, Captain Sparshot 


MES. DINES S JEWELS. 


83 


among them, and Mr. Sampson, the second mate, who 
had charge of the ship, stumped the break of the poop 
to and fro, to and fro, athwartships in the regular sea- 
walk of an officer of the watch. 

“ So that’s our friend of Madeira out yonder, again !” 
said Mr. Eden, taking an opera-glass from his wife’s 
hand and levelling it at the horizon, where a marble- 
white shaft of sail was showing, clear-cut as a pinnacle 
of iceberg upon the sea-line that resembled a rim 
of glass tinctured by the blue of the sky you saw 
through it. 

“ Yes, that’s the steam -yacht,” answered Captain 
Sparshot. 

“ She holds her own wonderfully well,” said Mr. 
Winthrop. “Do you think she sometimes uses her 
engines, Captain?” 

“ I think it very likely that she does, sir,” answered 
Sparshot, with a glance up aloft, and then a look at 
the water over the lee side, where the white swirl 
from the shouldering bow came eddying and seething 
and hissing and frolicking in many snow-like shapes of 
glistening beauty round the quarter to join the spread- 
ing furrow of yeast astern. 

“ Don’t you think,” exclaimed Major Stopford- 
Creake, approaching the group of passengers in a 
lounging way, and speaking with a slight drawl, “that 
one reason for her keeping at a long distance from us 
is that we may not see when she uses her engines ?” 

“ I am disposed to agree with you, Major,” said the 


84 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


Captain, whose speech to this son of a lord was invari- 
ably marked by a tone of respect which did not ac- 
centuate his language when he conversed, for example, 
with Mr. du Boulay or Mr. Winthrop. 

“But if she uses her engines,” said Mr. Eden, 
“ wouldn’t you see the smoke pouring out of her 
chimney ?” 

“ Perhaps not, sir,” answered Sparshot. 

“ It would not be fair to call it a race if she is using 
steam unbeknown to us,” said Mrs. Dines. 

“ It’s no race,” exclaimed Mr. du Boulay ; “ she is 
wisely keeping us in sight in case she should come to 
want help. She is no more than a cock-boat for such 
a sea as this.” 

“A cock- boat as big as a gun-boat, anyway,” said 
Mr. Winthrop. “ What’s her tonnage do you say, 
Captain?” 

“I cannot say — I did not observe — those steamers 
are misleading,” answered the Captain. “ She might 
be a hundred and fifty tons,” he added. 

“ Did anybody take notice of her while she lay at 
Madeira ?” inquired Mr. du Boulay. 

Nobody happened to have regarded her with any 
degree of attention. Mrs. Dines declared that she 
never even saw her until she began to follow the ship. 
Mrs. Wreathock said that she had not observed the 
yacht ; “ but then,” added the young widow, smiling 
at Sparshot, “ all ships are alike to me, as I suppose 
they are to most women. I can see the differ- 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


85 


ence between a big ship and a little ship, and that 
is all.” 

“ Perhaps Mr. Sampson noticed her,” said Mr. 
Sparkes. “ He is a sailor, and sailors have eyes in 
their heads for everything that floats.” 

Without being in the least degree interested in the 
subject, and influenced merely by a desire to amuse his 
passengers, Captain Sparshot called to Mr. Sampson, 
the second mate, who immediately stepped aft. 

“ Mr. Sampson,” said the Captain, “ did you notice 
that schooner away yonder when she lay off the 
island ?” 

“ Slightly, sir . 55 

“ Only slightly ?” 

“ She is a steam -yacht, sir,” said Mr. Sampson, 
“ very heavily rigged for a vessel of her class.” 

“ Yes, that we have already found out , 55 said Spar- 
shot, dryly. “ Did you observe any ladies or gentlemen 
on board ?” 

“No, sir; but I believe her skipper came alongside 
this ship . 55 

“ Alongside to have a look at us, I suppose ?” said 
Sparshot. 

“ I did not see him come aboard , 55 said Mr. Sampson. 
“I was on the forecastle and looking over the side, 
and saw a yacht’s dingy leave our ship. It was the 
same dingy, I believe, that I had seen making for us 
from the yacht. The man in the stern -sheets had the 
appearance of the yacht’s commander.” 


86 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


“ He may have approached us,” said Mr. Winthrop, 
“ to find out where we were bound to, with the inten- 
tion of keeping us company.” 

“ Why not signal her?” said Mr. du Boulay ; “ she is 
not too proud to give us her name, I suppose, despite 
her holding off as though there was a fraudulent 
debtor in her cabin, and a brace of sheriff’s officers 
in ours.” 

“ Make our number, sir,” said Sparshot to the second 
mate; saying to himself as he spoke the words, “ any- 
thing to keep ’em amused — anything to keep ’em 
amused.” 

A string of pretty flags soared to the gaff-end of the 
Southern Cross. Every passenger who owned or who 
could borrow a telescope or a binocular-glass directed 
it at the distant spires of canvas. Captain Sparshot 
placed a powerful field-glass of his own in Mrs. Wreath- 
ock’s hands, and gazed a moment at her charming 
profile when her eyes were at the lenses. But the 
yacht was too remote for anything but a good tele- 
scope to enable the sight to distinguish an answering 
signal aboard her. Sparshot peered through his own 
fine glass, and Mr. Sampson through the ship’s. 

“ Well, and what do you see?” cried Mrs. Dines, pres- 
ently, to the Captain. 

“ Why, this, madam,” answered Sparshot, talking 
with his right eye glued to the glass. “ I see a bit of 
a steam-yacht whose bulwark is just ‘ dipping,’ as we 
say : she is sliding through it as fast as ourselves, and 


MRS. DINES’s JEWEL8. 


87 


without showing all the canvas she is able to spread. 
But I don’t mean to say her screw is not revolving. 
. . . "What’s that ? . . . Yes, there goes her answering 
pennant. She made out our number, ladies. Now we 
shall see if she means to favor us with her name. Mr. 
Sampson, you will haul down those colors.” 

No sooner had the flags which decorated the gaff- 
end of the Southern Cross been lowered than Captain 
Sparshot, who kept his eye at his telescope, remarked 
that the yacht hauled down her answering pennant. 
This was to have been expected. But instead of mak- 
ing her own number, instead — in other words — of 
spelling her name with flags, the steam-yacht slightly 
shifted her helm, and Sparshot did not need to look 
long to discover that the little vessel was drawing 
away, and that if she held on as she was now going 
she would be very shortly out of sight. 

The passengers expressed some disappointment. 
Mrs. Dines, who claimed as an old passenger to know 
something of the customs and courtesies of the sea, 
declared that the master of the yacht must be a man 
of a vulgar mind, without a nice feeling in him. The 
Major was of opinion that the captain of the steamer 
was a sensitive man, who desired to keep the South- 
ern Cross in sight, but who did not wish that Captain 
Sparshot and the people of the ship should suppose 
that he was governed by any desire of the sort, lest 
they should conclude that he was a timid person. 
This notion seemed to amuse Mr. du Boulay, and he 


88 


MRS. DINES' S JEWELS. 


broke into a laugh ; on which the Major, after view- 
ing him sternly for a few moments, turned on his 
heels and walked forward. 

But the matter was one to quickly lose interest. 
There are many surly skippers at sea, and the master 
of the yacht was clearly a rude and ill-conditioned 
man. He desired the company of the Southern Cross , 
and yet refused to be in the least degree sociable. Be 
it so. The ocean was wide ; there was plenty of room 
for both ships ; apparently the steam-yacht was even 
now forging ahead down the slope of the ocean with 
the intention of putting herself out of sight. And, in- 
deed, of her meaning there could be no doubt, wdien, 
shortly after eight bells had been made by the Cap- 
tain’s sextant, it was discovered that there was not a 
glimpse of the yacht’s loftiest canvas to be obtained 
from the deck of the ship. 

The passengers went about their pleasures as usual. 
Mrs. Sparkes opened a novel; her elder daughter 
played at draughts with Mr. Winthrop; Miss de la 
Taste in the saloon sang without much sweetness at 
the piano-forte ; Mr. du Boulay made his peace with 
the Major, and smoked cigars with the honorable and 
gallant gentleman under the break of the poop ; and 
Captain Sparshot walked the deck with the Honor- 
able Mrs. Wreathock, and very agreeably diverted her 
with a number of salt experiences of his own, leaving 
Mrs. Dines to amuse herself at whist in the cabin with 
Mr. and Mrs. Eden and Mrs. du Boulay. 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


Thus passed the afternoon. But when, after dinner, 
Captain Sparshot went on deck, accompanied by most 
of the passengers, Mr. Parr, who had charge of the 
watch, stepping up to him with a flourish of his thumb 
in the direction of the peak of his cap, exclaimed, 
“ Our friend is in sight again, sir,” and he pointed to 
the horizon right abeam, where, like a delicate shad- 
ing of a pencil upon a ground of amber, floated the 
canvas of the steam-yacht against the dim and dying 
flush of sunset. 

“ Fll thank you for five shillings, Eden,” exclaimed 
Mr. Winthrop ; and Mr. Eden, who had betted that 
the schooner would not again be seen, pulled out two 
half-crowns and gave them to Mr. Winthrop. 

The fine breeze which was at this hour blowing, 
and which had been blowing throughout the day, car- 
ried the ship to the tropic confines, and next day she 
took the north-east trade-wind and bowled along her 
course for the equator, with studding-sails out to port 
and the water white as milk alongside the starboard. 
Her pace was indeed noble ; there was the right weight 
of wind for the Southern Cross ; it blew whence it 
should to suit her heels, and she swept through the 
glistening ridges with a snow-storm at her bows, and 
with the sunshine along her decks leaping with the 
shadows of her rigging, and with a sparkle of salt-dried 
plank, of skylight window, of brilliant binnacle, or 
brass drum -head and rail-pin along the length of her. 


90 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


And all this while the schooner kept her company. 
It was remarked that she seldom showed more of her 
hull than the line of her bulwark-rails. Sometimes 
she would forge ahead and disappear, and then when 
next sighted she would be some speck of canvas far 
away down on the quarter. Only once was smoke 
observed to issue from her funnel. This happened one 
mid-day, when the north-east trade-wind suddenly 
freshened and blew with so much spite as to oblige 
the Southern Cross to haul down her studding-sails 
and furl her three royals. Then it was seen that the 
yacht under canvas only was not going to hold her 
own with the Australian liner in strong breezes. 
That the little steamer, however, did not mean to lose 
sight of her big companion was proved by her firing 
up shortly after it had been perceived that the ship 
was walking aw r ay from her. Her propeller gave her 
the additional speed she needed, and she resumed her 
position abeam — now to leeward, as it had been with 
her ever since the trade-wind first came on to blow — 
never showing more of herself than from the line of 
her rails, and coming and going to the eye in the 
ocean haze over the horizon as the seas rose and fell 
between. 

But when the wind slackened afresh into the ten- 
knot breeze it had heretofore been blowing, the filter- 
ing of smoke died out of the steamer’s funnel, and it 
was plain that she was once more saving her coal, and 
keeping the liner in sight by sail power only. 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


91 


Long before this time everybody had grown so used 
to the sight of her that she had ceased to be an ob- 
ject of interest. Now she could interest only by dis- 
appearing, for then she would excite speculations. 
Would she reappear? And bets were certain to be 
made upon this. If ever she was talked of, it was 
only by some one or other who would wonder where 
she was bound to, and when she would make a de- 
parture for her destination and disappear. 

“ She is certain to lose sight of us if she don’t come 
closer,” Captain Sparshot once said. 

“ She has not done so yet,” was the answer. 

“ No,” said Sparshot ; “ but we are not going to have 
clear weather and steady breezes all the way out ; it 
will come on thick some day, and then she will lose us.” 

“ This side of the Line do you think, Captain ?” in- 
quired the Major. 

“ Oh, it is hard to say, sir,” answered Sparshot ; 
“probably not. We look for smooth waters and 
troublesome airs till we strike the south-east trades, 
though I have met with some handsome dustings in 
the doldrums in my time, too. But until thick and 
heavy weather comes along she can’t well miss us ; 
she is our match and more than our match as a sailer 
in most winds, given a middling quiet sea ; and when 
it shall come to what I call the sneaking parts of the 
water, where the wind blows only to dodge a ship, 
why there are her engines to enable her to keep sight 
of us.” 


92 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


“ I bet,” said Mr. Winthrop, “ that when the calms 
come she will steam ahead and leave us.” 

“ What will you bet ?” said Mr. du Boulay. 

“ I will bet a sovereign,” said Mr. Winthrop. 

“ Done,” said Mr. du Boulay. 

“ You w T ill lose your money, Winthrop,” said Mr. 
Eden. “ I have a notion, and I will tell you what it 
is. The owner of that yacht is on board with his 
wife. His wife is a very timid woman, and she con- 
sented to accompany her husband only on condition 
that the steamer should always keep a fine ship in 
sight. We happen to be that ship.” 

“ A rich idea !” cried Mrs. Dines. 

Sparshot laughed, and walked to the open skylight 
to listen to Mrs. Wreathock, who was playing upon 
the piano. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


A QUIET NIGHT. 

Now one day when the Southern Cross was still a 
good number of leagues north of the equator, it befell, 
as the Captain had predicted, and, indeed, as any one 
of the passengers might have foretold : the .Australian 
liner rushed out of the north-east trade-wind into a 
gentle air from the westward, which gave her way 
for a while, then left her ; and then she floated up- 
right upon a sea that seemed the deader for the hot 
and sickly swell that ran through it, making you 
think of the lifeless and breathless lifting of alligators 
to the surface of a hot, greasy, yellow African river. 
Her canvas hung up and down; the red fly of her 
mast-head vane was like a streak of paint upon the 
dim blue air ; an intolerable smell of blistered pitch 
rose from her sides ; the saloon was suffocating with 
its ancient odor of meals, its aromas of stuffed horse- 
hair and hot morocco ; and there was not enough air 
on deck to do so much as sway the wind-sails, whose 
heels dangled in the cuddy through the open skylights. 

“ This is what they call being becalmed near the 
equator,” said Mr. Eden to Miss de la Taste. “ I hope 
you are enjoying it ?” 


94 


MRS. DINERS JEWELS. 


“ Alas ! I am not a mermaid,” answered Miss de la 
Taste. 

“ There’s our Mend down yonder !” exclaimed Mr. 
Sparkes, rising through the companion - hatch, and 
pointing to the horizon over the bow; “Winthrop 
has won his sovereign. The yacht is steaming ahead 
and is leaving us.” 

“Not at all,” exclaimed Mr. du Boulay, coming 
from the rail over which he had been staring in the 
direction of the steamer ; “ the yacht is not leaving us. 
She is motionless like ourselves. She has furled her 
canvas, and Winthrop’ s sovereign is mine.” 

“ But, my dear fellow,” cried Mr. Sparkes — for by 
this time, as you may suppose, the passengers were 
on very friendly terms— “ don’t you see that the yacht 
is ahead of us ?” 

“ That is because our ship is no longer under com- 
mand of her helm,” said Mr. du Boulay; “she has 
twisted round, can’t you see ? The yacht will be on 
the other bow before long, and by- and -by you will 
find her astern of us.” 

Here Mr. Winthrop arrived, and eagerly peered at 
the steamer through a telescope. 

“ Who’s to say,” cried he, “ what she is doing ? 
There is nothing to be seen of her but her naked 
masts and funnel. If she is motionless now she may 
change her mind presently and steam out of sight. I 
sha’n’t consider my bet lost until to-morrow morning 
shows us whether she is or is not out of the range of 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 95 

our horizon, measuring the sea from our main-royal 
yard up there.” 

It was too hot to argue ; Mr. du Boulay languidly 
said, “ All right, let it be as you say and the subject 
was dropped. 

As the afternoon advanced the weather slightly 
thickened, dimming somewhat the fiery eyes of the 
sun, but leaving all his former heat in the duller blaze 
and slightly narrowing the ocean line, so that when 
Mr. Winthrop, to satisfy his curiosity, climbed uneasi- 
ly up the mizzen-shrouds into the mizzen-top with a 
telescope slung round his shoulder he could see noth- 
ing of the yacht. 

Everybody looked forward to the night : to the 
cool, the dew, the refreshing dusk of night after the 
wide tropic glare of the day, the steely glitter under 
the sun, and the oven-like breathlessness of the atmos- 
phere. And when the night came along, dark indeed 
it was, with the ocean like a surface of black grease 
weakly heaving in a thick and sickly swell through 
the gloom, that seemed more like a smouldering of the 
atmosphere than pure air. The stars were spare and 
faint, the new moon had followed in the wake of the 
sun, had dwelt for a little like a red scar on the dark 
face of the west, and then died out, vanishing before 
it had set. 

Most of the passengers were on deck. They were 
seated under a short awning which had been left 
spread as a shelter from the heavy dew. The lighter 


MBS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


sails had been furled to save them from chafing ; but 
the great main-sail drooped in festoons from its yard, 
and every light movement of the ship made a fan of 
the fall of pallid cloths, and the eddying draughts, 
sweet and cool with dew, ran along the decks. 

The hush when the ear went to it was mighty and 
heart - subduing, coming as it did out of those vast 
reaches of smoke-like dusk, through which here and 
there a lean star peered as dull as a reflection of itself 
in clouded glass. You were made more sensible of 
the marvellous stillness of the sea by sounds which 
defined the silence by breaking into it : a short sob of 
water at the rudder, the frog-like croak of a panel, the 
sudden noise of a sail hollowing in and striking some 
mast high in the gloom with a sound like the e^losion 
of a musket up there. 

The hour was about nine o’clock. A hum of con- 
versation came from the direction of the forecastle, 
but it was so dark that way that the figures of the 
people were indistinguishable from the poop. 

“ It is a very dark night,” said Mrs. Dines ; “ I hope 
nothing ain’t likely to run into us, Capting.” 

“ I cannot imagine anything more awful than a col- 
lision at sea,” said Mrs. Sparkes. 

“ Don’t mention it, I beg of you, on a dark night, 
and the Capting not answering,” said Mrs. Dines. 

“Pray, what would you have me say, Mrs. Dines?” 
inquired the Captain. “ I am not very much afraid 
of anything running into us. Steamers are not so 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


97 


plentiful as all that down in this part of the ocean ; 
and what under sail is going to foul us when there is 
not air enough to blow the scent off a milkmaid, as 
J ack says ? However, to ease your mind, Mrs. Dines ” 
— and he called out, “ Mr. Parr !” 

“ Sir !” 

“ Ascertain if the side-lights are burning brightly.” 

The side-lights were ascertained to be burning as 
brightly as the most cautious commander could wish, 
and Mrs. Dines owned that the news comforted her. 

Here Mrs. Wreathock’s gentle voice broke in with 
several questions. What were side-lights, and where 
were they placed, and why was one of them red and 
the other green? The Captain furnished her with 
the information she sought. The conversation then 
came back again to collisions. Mr. Sparkes, taking a 
sip of brandy -and -soda, and putting the glass care- 
fully down on the deck, wished to know what was 
the first thing to be done when one ship ran into 
another. 

“ Take to the boats, of course,” said Mr. Winthrop. 

A nautical argument followed, and the Captain lis- 
tened with a smile to it, as Mrs. Wreathock was able 
to observe by the sheen from the skylight, which re- 
vealed most of the people to one another ; but he took 
no part in the discussion. 

The Major, who was seated upon a camp-stool a 
short way from the group, but within easy talking 
distance, exclaimed, 

7 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


“ I suppose the first business of the captain of a 
ship is to ascertain the damage done to his own ves- 
sel ; then to stand by the other ship, learn the extent 
of her injuries, and render all possible help to her 
people ?” 

“ That’s as it should be,” said the Captain. 

“But what could be done on a dark night like 
this ?” continued the Major. “ I presume a com- 
mander would burn port-fires and send up rockets ?” 

“Port -fires and rockets would indicate the situa- 
tion of the surviving ship to all boats which might 
be adrift with people in them,” said Captain Spar- 
shot. 

“ What is a port-fire ?” inquired Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ Yes, what is a port-fire ?” said Mrs. Dines. 

“It is a tube,” answered the Captain, “filled with 
some combustious stuff wSich, when fired, gushes out 
in flame like water out of a scupper-hole.” 

“And what is a rocket?” asked Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ Surely you know what a rocket is, Fanny !” said 
the Major. 

“I know that a rocket is a firework,” said Mrs. 
Wreathock ; “ but am I to believe that they use fire- 
works for signals ?” 

“ Not fireworks according to the meaning that is in 
your mind,” said Sparshot. “Sockets ashore burst 
into several colored balls and the like. The ocean 
rocket ivas not invented to please the eye. It was 
mainly meant as an appeal to benevolence.” 


BRILLIANT BLOOD-RED STREAM OF FIRE WAS PODRING FROM THE MOUTH OF THE TUBE 







25 


to- 

SS 

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► 


















■ . •■ tf / fj; yw&x. 


i 

»1T- j 



































































































































































MBS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


99 


“I would give anything , 55 said Mrs. Wreathock, “to 
see a port-fire let off, and a rocket sent up . 55 

“Would you ? 55 said the Captain. 

“ I would, indeed , 55 exclaimed the charming young 
widow. “ How wildly lovely and romantic this noble 
ship would look colored by such a fountain-like flame 
as you describe a port-fire makes . 55 

“ What d’ye say, Mrs. Dines, to a small exhibition 
of fireworks ? 55 said the Captain. 

“ I shall enjoy the sight if there is no fear of the 
ship being set on fire , 55 answered Mrs. Dines. 

The others eagerly entreated that a port-fire should 
be let off and a rocket sent up ; on which Captain 
Sparshot called to Mr. Parr and gave him certain 
instructions, adding, “The yacht’ll guess we’re amus- 
ing our passengers ; if not, she must send a boat and 
be !” Shortly afterwards the passengers assem- 

bled in a body at the end of the starboard poop-lad- 
der, and an order was given to a man stationed on 
the bulwark-rail to discharge the tube he grasped. In 
an instant a brilliant blood -red stream of fire was 
pouring from the mouth of the tube into the sea. The 
picture was wonderfully fine and wild ; more so than 
Mrs. Wreathock could have imagined. The crimson 
lustre tinged a wide compass of atmosphere ; the sails 
glanced out to the light as though touched by red 
moonshine ; at the foot of every figure a black shadow 
swung to the cradling heave of the sea ; the shrouds 
shone as though formed of twisted gold, and the water 


100 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


was flashed up by the sparkling ruddy fall till you 
could see the blackness of the night standing upright 
beyond, as though some colossal rampart wall, a part 
only of which was visible, environed the ship. 

The port -fire blazed for some time. Everybody 
loudly applauded it. Mrs. Wreathock, standing by the 
Captain’s side, murmured exclamations of delight, and 
the Major, forgetting himself for the moment, swore 
with an oath that he had never witnessed a more 
magnificent sight in all his life. 

Here w r as praise to improve Sparshot’s spirits. It 
was a cheap entertainment so far as the resources of 
the ship were concerned; and Sparshot was one of 
those skippers who regard the entertaining of passen- 
gers, and the making them pleased with the vessel 
and willing to recommend her — to say nothing of a 
silver claret jug or some presentation fal-lal of that 
sort at the end of the passage or voyage — as among 
the foremost of the obligations of shipboard routine. 

“ Eocket ready ?” he called out. 

“ All ready, sir,” responded Mr. Parr from the ship’s 
quarter. 

“Up with it !” cried Sparshot, and up it went, with 
a sort of long, snoring hiss, and a beautiful explosion 
of sun-bright flame. 

“ It’s really like being at a feet” cried Mrs. Dines, 
who, it must in justice be said, rarely spoke French. 
“ I prefer them rockets to the other thing ; they are less 
dangerous and much more astonishing than lightning.” 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


101 


Mrs. Wreathock begged Captain Sparshot to send 
up another rocket. 

“It will be something for me to remember,” said 
she. “ Often have I wished to see a rocket sent up at 
sea. One associates the rocket with the life-boat, the 
stranded vessel, the dark night of storm.” 

“Fire another rocket, Mr. Parr,” exclaimed Spar- 
shot. .This time the soaring explosive burst into a 
ball of blue lire, which rushed into the sky in a line as 
straight as the mast of a ship, and the glittering parti- 
cles floated slowly downward direct from the spot 
where the ball had exploded, showing that there was 
not a breath of air in motion aloft or below. 

Sparshot was warmly thanked for this pleasing and 
(to Mrs. Wreathock) instructive exhibition. The pas- 
sengers resumed their seats under the awning. But 
the Major stalked here and there about the deck, as 
though rendered restless by the heat, that was indeed 
excessive. Sometimes he would pause at the rail, and 
look for a minute into the darkness beyond. Some- 
times he would wander in a mechanical way to the 
binnacle and fix his eyes on the compass-card idly, as 
though with a loathing of the tedium of the sea life, 
and more particularly of these dark, sultry current 
hours of it. Once while sauntering he came across 
Mr. Parr, who stood on the starboard quarter of 
the ship near the wheel. The oflicer seemed to be 
hearkening after and straining his gaze at some- 
thing. 


102 MRS. t)INES*S JEWELS. 

“ Is this calm going to last, do you think ?” inquired 
the Major. 

“ There is every appearance of it lasting, sir,” an- 
swered Mr. Parr. 

“ Are there any particular signs to enable a man to 
judge of the weather hereabouts?” said the Major. 

“ I know these latitudes fairly w T ell,” answered Mr. 
Parr ; “ and in my experience this is the sort of calm 
that lasts. There are three signs of a lasting calm — 
when the water is like w T arm dripping, and heaves in 
a sort of strangling swell ; when the weather is thick 
without being cloudy, giving you a sight of a star or 
two only, without anything to be seen to hide the 
rest ; when — ” he broke off and said, after a pause, 
“I seem to see a shadow out there that looms like 
the hull of a vessel. I am wondering if our rockets 
have called the yacht to us.” 

The Major stared and exclaimed, “You have very 
good eyes, Mr. Parr; I see nothing.” 

“ And neither do I now,” said Mr. Parr. 

“ I fancied, sir,” rumbled the fellow who grasped 
the spokes of the wheel, “ that the steam-yacht what’s 
bin keepin’ company with us ain’t far off. Seems as 
if she wur messin’ about on the lookout for us. I 
heard a sort of breathing not long ago like to what a 
steamer’s engines make when they move slow, and 
sends a spurt o’ water out in slops from a hole in the 
wessel’s side.” 

Mr. Parr left the rail to procure a night-glass. The 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


103 


Major joined the passengers and told them that the 
man at the wheel believed that their Madeira friend 
the steam-yacht was not far olf. 

“ I hope the man at the wheel is right,” cried Mr. du 
Boulay, with a laugh. 

The news caused some commotion. The passengers 
with binoculars and telescopes explored the darkness 
all the way round the ship. At times one would fancy 
he saw a smudge ; and at times another would imag- 
ine that he beheld a tiny point of light. But what- 
ever was seen was clearly no more than a deceit of 
the vision, some illusive shapings of the folds of the 
liquid gloom that seemed to work in eddies as it was 
looked at. 

Nothing was visible and nothing was to be heard. 

“ You may pay me that sovereign at once if you 
like, Du Boulay,” exclaimed Mr. Winthrop. “No steam- 
er is going to stick here in this calm if she has got a 
shovelful of coals on board to boil her water with.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


“in the middle watch.” 

The middle watch at sea extends from midnight 
until the hour of four. In this age of steam it is dif- 
ficult for the travelled reader to understand the sort 
of death-like pause that happens in the middle watch 
in a sailing ship when she lies without motion in the 
deep stagnation of an intertropic calm. 

What manner of midnight hush it is that lies like a 
sensible burden upon a sailing ship becalmed at mid- 
night in mid-ocean you would have understood had 
you stepped from the cabin of the Southern Cross to 
her deck. The lamps were extinguished in the saloon. 
There was no light to be seen fore and aft the bulky 
lifting shadow of the vessel, save the sheen of the side- 
lamps in their screens forward, and the haze of the 
binnacle lamp with the vague shape of the helmsman 
beyond it. All the passengers were in bed. The 
Captain had gone below at seven bells (half -past elev- 
en), after giving Mr. Parr certain directions. But it 
was now past midnight, and at twelve o’clock the port 
watch had been relieved, so that the officer of the 
deck was the second mate, young Mr. Sampson, whose 
figure you might see leaning against the rail or glid- 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


105 


in g aft with a drowsy motion. Sometimes he would 
look at the compass, loudly yawning into it ; then he 
would stare around into the darkness that lay upon 
the sea ; then he would go again to the rail and lean 
against it. 

The middle watch forms a fearfully dull four hours 
on board a ship becalmed. Mr. Sampson could not 
converse with the man at the wheel ; he dared not sit 
lest he should nod and be caught sleeping by the Cap- 
tain, and perhaps ruined for life ; he could, indeed, 
smoke, and this he did, lighting his pipe stealthily, and 
holding the bowl in his fist that the glowing tobacco 
might not be seen. He envied the common sailors — 
those forecastle Jacks who were privileged to coil 
themselves away in nooks and corners and sleep 
through their watch, prepared nevertheless to spring 
to their feet and fly to the first hoarse roar that should 
be delivered from the poop. 

One bell was struck — half -past twelve. The chime 
had scarcely trembled into silence when a figure arose 
through the companion - way out of the saloon, and 
stood for a few moments as though looking about ; 
then distinguishing the shape of the second mate as 
he hung over the rail sucking at his pipe, and gazing 
into the sea, thinking perhaps less of England than of 
home and beauty, the figure, with a military stride, 
walked to where the officer was. 

“It’s too frightfully hot to sleep,” exclaimed the 
familiar voice of Major Stopford-Creake. 


106 


MKS. DINES S JEWELS. 


Mr. Sampson instantly stood bolt upright. 

“ Do not put your pipe away,” continued the Major. 
“ Or, well — put it away and take one of my cigars 
and he opened a cigar-case and gave Mr. Sampson a 
small, full-flavored cigar. He then himself lighted 
one, and, with an affability that was unusual in him, 
entered into conversation with the second mate. He 
asked several questions of interest to Mr. Sampson — 
how long had he been to sea? when did he expect to 
obtain command ? did he like the calling of the ocean ? 
was interest a condition of promotion in the Merchant 
Service as it was in the Eoyal Navy, in which he had 
an uncle, Lord Balmington, who was an admiral, and 
so on. Nothing broke the stillness but the hum of 
this conversation if it were not for an occasional flap 
of sail up aloft or a greasy, gurgling sound of water 
alongside. 

“ Do you know,” said the Major, “ that I find the 
flavor of these cigars curiously improved by Benedic- 
tine, a liqueur I never travel without? One cannot 
get a decent liqueur on board ship.” 

He drew a flask from his pocket, and removed the 
little silver cup in which it was fitted, and half -filled 
the cup with the liqueur which he called Benedictine. 
He raised the cup to his mouth, then by a gesture 
seemed to correct himself. 

“ Try a drop,” said he ; “ it is a fine cordial, with a 
quality of sweetness that curiously improves the flavor 
of good tobacco.” 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


107 


Where is the sailor that can refuse a “ tot ?” and 
how fond second mates are of drams everybody knows 
from the bigness of the draught that at sea goes by 
the name of “ a second mate’s nip.” 

“ D’ye take it neat, sir?” said Mr. Sampson. 

“Oh, certainly; liqueurs are always drunk neat,” 
answered the Major, with no hint in his voice of the 
merriment which the plain and honest second mate’s 
question might reasonably have provoked in him. 

Mr. Sampson put the silver cup to his mouth and 
drained it, and when he had drained it he smacked his 
lips, and said, “ So they call that Benedictine ! Glad 
to know it, sir, for it’s lush that’s going to cost me 
some well-spent dollars before I am done with this 
world.” 

It was evident that he liked it. He lifted his cigar 
again to his lips, and he and the Major continued to 
chat; but after they had been conversing for some 
time Mr. Sampson’s utterance grew thick, his speech 
expressed bewilderment, as though he were an aston- 
ished man ; he let his cigar fall, and while stooping to 
pick it up he sank upon his hand in the posture of 
a coolie sucking at a hubble-bubble, and thus he re- 
mained. 

The Major walked leisurely to the wheel and glanced 
at the compass-card as though he had stepped aft for 
no other purpose, and, looking forward towards the 
bows, he observed that the sheen of the binnacle 
light deepened, by troubling the eye, the gloom which 


108 


MRS. DINES* S JEWELS. 


lay upon the ship. The figure of the second mate 
blended with the rail and with the rigging that came 
down to the after end of the main chains, and it was 
absorbed in the general shadow. 

“ It is a still night,” said the Major, addressing the 
fellow at the helm, who stood mute and motionless at 
the spokes. 

“ It is, sir.’* 

“ There is no objection, I suppose,” continued the 
Major, “to a passenger conversing with the man at 
the wheel on such a night as this ?” 

“ There ain’t much that requires attention when 
the ocean’s quiet as muck and the wind’s up and 
down,” answered the man. 

“ How long do you stand here ?” 

“ Two hours, sir.” 

“ It must be dull work.” 

“ Aye’ I’d rather be abed and asleep.” 

“ The heat is terrible below, and there are cock- 
roaches in my cabin.” 

“ Measly things they be, specially in a man’s ’low- 
ance o’ molasses.” 

“ I have a dram in my pocket,” said the Major, pull- 
ing out the flask ; “ a dram can do you no hurt ; but 
we must bear a hand,” he added, with much good- 
nature in his voice, “lest the second officer should 
step aft and stop me.” 

“You’re werry good, sir,” said the man, with a 
nervous, expectant shuffle of his feet and a writhe of 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


109 


his body ; for here w r as not only rare condescension, 
here, too, was a “ drop o’ strong,” so happily timed 
that it might have been commended to the lips of this 
thirsty sailor — and where is the sailor that is not 
thirsty ? — by an angel hand out of the breathless dusk. 

“ This is a liquor that is not often served out to 
sailors by the tot on board ship, I should think,” 
said the Major, and he handed the silver cup to the 
seaman, who, saying, “Well, here’s to you, sir, and 
thankin’ you kindly,” took down the draught at a 
gulp. 

The Major put the flask in his pocket, lingered a 
short while on deck, then entering the companion- 
way, descended into the saloon, and walked to the 
forward end where stood the door that conducted to 
the quarter-deck. He closed this door very softly, 
locked it noiselessly, withdrew the key, and placed it 
on the deck under a sofa. This done, he went to his 
(jabin and took from a bag a small circular buoy that 
was like a model of such a buoy as would be thrown 
to a man if he fell overboard. He then softly knock- 
ed: thrice upon the bulkhead on the right-hand side of 
his cabin, and as he stepped through the door of his 
berth the Honorable Mrs. Wreathock, dressed in a 
tight-fitting jacket and a turban-shaped hat, came out 
of her cabin. Hot a syllable was uttered by either. 
The Major went on deck, and his sister followed ; and 
no sooner had they gained the deck than the Major 
silently secured the entrance to the saloon by closing 


110 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


the doors of the companion, drawing the cover over, 
and fixing the bar to its staple, from which, however, 
the padlock had been removed, though padlock or no 
padlock it would now be impossible for any one inside 
the saloon to get out. 

The man who had been standing at the wheel was 
upon the grating just abaft it. He had seated him- 
self, but his form had yielded while he sat ; he had 
fallen upon his side on the grating, and there he lay 
motionless as a corpse. 

“ Quickly now !” exclaimed the Major, in a whisper, 
fierce with feverish hurry. 

Mrs. Wreathock apparently knew what to do. She 
walked to the mizzen-shrouds on the port or left-hand 
side of the vessel, got upon the rail, and, without the 
hand of the Major, with amazing agility and in a few 
moments, sank out of sight onto the platform that in 
those days widened the stretch of the mizzen-shrouds, 
and that was called the mizzen-channel. It was a de- 
scent that she had doubtless mentally practised over 
and over again, often during the passage going to the 
vessel’s side and studying the intricacies of the rigging 
and the character of the platform ; otherwise, surely 
must she have been at a loss in attempting the de- 
scent, small as the height w r as, on so dark a night, 
without the grip of a hand to steady her, and ham- 
pered besides by her apparel. 

The Major, looking over and perceiving that the 
widow was safe in the mizzen-channel, breathlessly 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


Ill 


whispered down : “ Not a sound ! Be careful not to 
cough — the Du Boulays’ window is on one side of 
you and the Edens’ on the other, and they are certain 
to be wide open !” And having said this, he stole 
away aft to the grating upon which the motionless 
seaman lay, and, getting upon it, he crawled on his 
knees to the taffrail, over which he projected his head 
and listened while he might have counted ten. He 
then held the buoy which he had brought with him 
from his cabin over the edge of the taffrail, drew a 
wax match from his pocket, struck it, lighted a cone- 
shaped fuze, and dropped the buoy into the water. 

Whatever it was that he lighted upon the buoy 
burned in a small but strong bright flame. The light 
was under the counter of the ship ; the eddying of the 
water round about the stern-post of the becalmed ves- 
sel that was bowing gently on the weak swell of the 
sea seemed to somewhat suck the illuminated buoy 
towards the rudder, and the radiance was concealed 
from the cabin windows by the shelf of the great 
square counter of the Southern Gross. 

The Major watched the light for a little while ; he 
watched it and listened ; then went to the side of the 
ship where the mizzen - shrouds descended to their 
dead-eyes in the channel, slipped down by the rigging, 
and stood beside Mrs. Wreathock. 

“ There she is !” faintly whispered the widow, and 
her shadowy arm and pallid hand pointed into the 
gloom of the sea on the quarter. 


112 


MBS. DINES S JEWELS. 


Now might be heard the half -smothered, faintly- 
dripping noise of muffled oars warily plied, but sullen- 
ly creaking in their rowlocks all the same. The shape 
of a boat oozed out of the dusk ; in a few beats of the 
heart — so short was the distance which the eye could 
measure in that deep midnight gloom — she was under 
the platform on which the Major and his sister stood. 
There were two figures in her. In silence the Major 
grasped his sister by the arm, and manoeuvred so as 
to get her outside the rigging ; one of the figures in 
the boat extended his hands, and received her as 
though she weighed no more than a child, and seated 
her. The Major, kneeling on the edge of the platform, 
dropped one leg till his foot was in the grasp of the 
man who had received the widow, and in an instant 
he was safe in the boat. 

“ Hark !” he cried. 

A sound of knocking, accompanied by dulled cries, 
proceeded from the poop. 

“ Shove off while I turn the bull’s-eye on,” said one 
of the men in a deep voice. 

The boat w r as thrust from the ship’s side by an oar, 
and as her head swept round the fellow who had last 
spoken twisted the obscuring part of a bull’s-eye, and 
held it above his head with its shining lens pointing to 
the quarter of the sea whence the boat had emerged. 
The signal was almost immediately answered by 
the sudden springing up of a small bright light 
out in the thick dusk; but how far off it was the 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


118 


most experienced eye might have been defied to 
guess. 

“ Now pull like blazes !” said the owner of the deep 
voice. 

Captain Sparshot, who had gone to bed at half-past 
eleven, awoke at twenty minutes to two, and, drawing 
on his coat and shoes and putting on his cap, he en- 
tered the saloon with the intention of going on deck 
to take a view of the weather. He thought to get 
out onto the quarter-deck, but found the door closed 
and locked. He felt for the key, it was gone; he 
thereupon silently heaped a number of injurious words 
upon the image of the head steward as it presented 
itself to his mind, and angrily walked to the compan- 
ion-steps and mounted them, to find the companion- 
way closed and barred ! 

For some moments Sparshot stood motionless with 
amazement ; he conceived that his crew had mutinied 
and possessed themselves of his ship ; the perspiration 
broke from his brow and trickled down his cheeks ; 
then a fit of rage and consternation combined seized 
him, and he fell to beating the companion doors with 
both clinched fists, while he roared at the top of his 
voice : “ Man at the wheel there ! open these doors ! 
where’s the officer of the watch ? what’s the meaning 
of this hatch being closed ?” 

This was an outcry to murder sleep among the pas- 
sengers. The first to rush out was Mr. Parr, the chief 
8 


114 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS.' 


officer; but in a minute Mr. Sparkes, Mr. Winthrop, 
Mr. Eden, and Mr. du Boulay had made their appear- 
ance, and the saloon was clamorous with their ques- 
tions, and with the voices of the ladies shrieking 
through the open doors of their berths to know what 
had happened, and if the danger was immediate, and 
if there was time to dress. 

Sparshot, giving no heed to all this noise, ordered 
Mr. Parr to scramble on deck through one of the 
skylights, the frame of which stood open. Mr. Parr 
did so, expecting, however, on showing himself to be 
stabbed or brained, and his bleeding and still sensi- 
ble body flung overboard. He squeezed through the 
frame of the skylight onto the deck, stood for an 
instant or two looking round, and then, hearing noth- 
ing and seeing nothing, jumped for the companion- 
way, which he opened, and up rushed Sparshot at the 
head of the gentlemen passengers. 

The first thing discovered was the motionless figure 
of the man who had been at the wheel ; the next the 
equally motionless figure of the second mate, Mr. 
Sampson, squatting Lascar fashion, breathing so ster- 
torously that the noise was like the rattling of a chain 
topsail - sheet hauled through a sheave. Sparshot’s 
earliest impression was that both men were drunk. 
This being Mr. Parr’s impression also, he caught hold 
of Mr. Sampson and kicked and shook and cuffed him, 
but with no better result than to cause the second mate 
to roll on his back and lie more motionless than ever. 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


115 


“ He has been drugged, sir,” said Mr. Parr. 

“ I tell you I heard voices,” shouted Mr. Winthrop. 

“ Here’s Winthrop says he heard voices under his 
cabin window !” exclaimed Mr. Eden. 

“ Why didn’t you say so before, sir?” cried Captain 
Sparshot. 

“ I have been trying to make myself heard,” am 
swered Mr. Winthrop. 

“ What did you hear ?” said the Captain, in a voice 
that trembled with wrath and agitation. 

“ I heard a deep voice say, ‘ Now pull like blazes /’ ” 

Sparshot sent a look at his quarter-boats, but they 
all hung safe in their gripes in the davits. By this 
time not only was the watch on deck wide awake, 
but the watch below had come tumbling up out of 
the forecastle, while a number of ’tween-deck passen- 
gers had hurried in an extremity of fear out of their 
quarters, so that the ship was now very wide awake 
indeed, and her decks full of people. 

. “ Send Mr. Wilkinson here !” cried the Captain ; and 
somebody went below into the steerage, and rum- 
maged out the ship’s doctor, who, as he slept in a 
darksome hole of a cabin right aft, had heard nothing 
of the commotion above. He came on deck, exam- 
ined the second mate and the seaman, and pronounced 
them both drugged — heavily drugged. Mr. Parr’s 
wits seemed more collected than the Captain’s. 

“ There has been a conspiracy here, sir,” said he. 
“ These two men have been drugged, and while they 


116 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


lay stupefied either the ship has been boarded or 
some people belonging to us have gone away in a 
strange boat.” 

“ Let everybody be mustered,” roared the Captain. 
“ Passengers and crew — every mother’s son — and we 
will see who is missing.” 

Lanterns were lighted, and the main and quar- 
ter decks illuminated; the boatswain’s pipe shrilled 
through the stillness and the gloom, a hoarse roar 
followed, and was attended by the shuffling sounds of 
many feet in motion. But Mr. Parr was spared the 
tedious job of mustering so large a mob of souls as 
the Southern Cross carried by the discovery that 
Major the Honorable Sebastian Stopford-Creake and 
his sister, the Honorable Mrs. Wreathock, were not to 
be found. The stewardess, thinking to reassure Mrs. 
Wreathock, had looked into her berth and found it 
empty. This suggested an idea to the steward, who, 
looking into the Major’s cabin, found that it , too, was 
empty. This man rushed on deck crying out the 
name of Major Stopford-Creake, not yet knowing but 
that he might be among the male passengers on the 
poop. 

“ It’s the Honorable pair that’s missing, sir,” said 
Mr. Parr, after ten minutes of fruitless hunting and 
shouting on his own part and on the part of the 
steward, of two under stewards, of the stewardess, 
several passengers, and a few seamen. 

Sparshot could not credit his hearing. 


MRS. DINES'S JEWELS. 


117 


“I tell yon the cry was ^ Now pull like Hazes!'” 
Mr. Winthrop could be heard exclaiming to a group 
of the passengers clustered round the skylight. 

“ They will have had an object in sneaking away ?” 
cried Sparshot, relying in his bewilderment upon his 
chief officer’s sagacity. 

“ I’ll f tell you what I think, sir,” answered Mr. 
Parr ; “ the steamer that’s been keeping us company 
has had a hand in this business. She could lie within 
a mile of us with her spars naked and all lights 
doused, and nothing be seen of her nor her presence 
guessed at in such darkness as this. . . .” 

“That port -fire and those rockets!” gasped Spar- 
shot. 

Mr. Parr fetched his leg a blow with his open hand. 

“ By Heaven, sir, I see it !” he cried. “ It was Mrs. 
Wreathock’s doing; she it was who asked for the fire- 
works. Why, of course, the show was intended as a 
signal for the steamer, and the next step was to wait 
till all was quiet aboard us ; then for the Major or the 
widow to come on deck and tip Mr. Sampson and the 
man at the wdieel a well -drugged dram — for who 
would be suspicious of the politeness of that quality 
couple ? — then hail the steamer’s boat lying close off 
in the dark, and enter her — ” 

He was continuing, but was interrupted by Spar- 
shot flying headlong to the companion-way, down 
which he bolted with the velocity of a man chased by 
a mad bull. 


CHAPTER X. 


sparshot’s safe. 

One or two of the saloon -lamps had been lighted. 
Some ladies stood at the foot of the companion-steps, 
and when Sparshot rushed down past them they cried 
out to him to stop — to explain what had happened — 
to tell them if there was any cause to feel frightened 
because the Major and his sister had mysteriously left 
the ship ; and the one who called most loudly upon 
Sparshot to stop was Mrs. Dines. 

But the Captain, paying no heed to the ladies, 
plunged through the saloon to his cabin. A bracket- 
lamp was burning dimly. With a trembling hand he 
turned up the wick to a bright light, looked at the 
safe, thrust his hand into his trousers pocket, pulled 
out a bunch of keys, and singling one of them, applied 
it to the narrow central drawer of that writing-table 
on which he had instructed Mrs. Wreathock in the art 
of navigation — the drawer whence, as we have seen, 
he had taken the keys of the safe that Mrs. Dines 
might show her necklace to the widow. 

The key went clean through the lock, and when 
Sparshot endeavored to withdraw it he pulled the 
drawer open. The lock had been smashed ; but the 


MRS. DINES ? S JEWELS. 


119 


keys of the safe lay in the drawer just as he had re- 
placed them on that day when Mrs. Dines showed 
her jewels to Mrs. Wreathock; for since that day 
Sparshot had had no occasion to examine the safe, and 
therefore to open the drawer to obtain the keys. 

He pulled off his cap and flung it into a corner, and 
his bald head shone with perspiration in the light of 
the bracket-lamp as though a can of oil had been cap- 
sized over it. He took the keys from the drawer and 
opened the safe, and he needed to look once only at 
the upper and lower shelves to see that the safe had 
been rummaged and robbed. He went down upon 
his knees, and with both hands explored the bundles 
and parcels which the thief had left behind. And 
first he discovered that Mrs. Dines’s necklace had been 
taken, and next that the best of the jewelry which be- 
longed to Mrs. Sparkes and Mrs. du Boulay — the ag- 
gregate value of which, doubtless, ran into many hun- 
dreds of pounds — was gone ! 

He rose slowly to his feet, and stood as though be- 
reft of life, staring with open mouth at the safe. He 
was a man whose spirit no sea difficulty, no ocean 
peril, providing it was in the way of his profession, 
could appal or subdue, no matter how sudden and hor- 
rible it might be. Sparshot was a person equal to 
every vocational confrontment, no matter how tragic 
its countenance. But a rifled safe ! To be robbed of 
thousands of pounds’ worth of precious articles com- 
mitted to his custody ! To be monstrously and hide- 


120 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


ously tricked by a brace of cunning thieves who might 
or might not be a son and daughter of a lord ! To 
understand that the wretches could not even now be 
far off, but that in so dead a calm as still continued, 
and with a nimble steamer to receive them, they were 
to be no more overtaken, captured, and the property 
recovered than if they had already arrived at New 
York, and were making the best of their way to San 
Francisco ! 

What could this plain merchant captain do? He 
cursed his ill-luck ; he heaped all manner of forecastle 
blessings upon himself for locking up the keys of a 
safe in a drawer, instead of carrying them about with 
him in his breast-pocket. His hands went to his bald 
head as though in search of hair to tear. He then 
locked the safe, put the keys in his pocket, and, pick- 
ing up his cap, entered the saloon. 

“ Surely, Capting, you will now tell us what’s the 
matter ?” cried Mrs. Dines from a sofa on which she 
was sitting, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown, with 
Mrs. Sparkes, Mrs. Eden, Mrs. du Boulay, and Miss de 
la Taste near her. 

“ Steward,” roared the Captain to the man who 
stood at the foot of the companion-ladder listening to 
the talk of some passengers collected above, “find the 
key of the saloon door if you can; if not, send the 
carpenter aft to force the lock !” And then he bawled 
out, “ My safe has been robbed !” 

“Now don’t tell me — ” shrieked Mrs. Dines, jump- 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


121 


ing from the sofa and making a spasmodic run of four 
or five steps towards Sparshot. 

“ Yes,” he cried, “ it’s gone — stolen by the Major or 
his Honorable sister !” 

Mrs. Dines fell upon the saloon-deck in a fit. 

The greatest confusion followed. Sparshot shout- 
ed for the doctor, and, exerting more than human 
strength, contrived without assistance to lift the ap- 
parently lifeless and very nearly shapeless mass of 
Mrs. Dines onto a sofa. Meanwhile those ladies 
whose jewelry had been intrusted to Sparshot begged 
him to tell them if their property w r as safe, and when 
the Captain answered that, so far as he could judge, 
the thieves had made off with the choicest and best 
of what had been committed to his care, loud were 
their lamentations, brain -addling their abuse of the 
Major and the widow. The noisiest was Mrs. du 
Boulay. She screamed up the companion-steps to her 
husband to instantly come down-stairs from the deck 
and learn how infamously she had been robbed, and 
all through Captain Sparshot having admitted that 
wretched creature Mrs. Wreathock to his cabin, w T here, 
of course, she pried into his secret business, and re- 
ported to her confederate, the Major, where Sparshot 
kept the keys of the safe, and what was inside the 
safe. Mr. du Boulay descended and listened to his 
wife, and, forgetting that he was in the presence of 
ladies, used some very strong language on his realiz- 
ing that the best of his wife’s jewelry was gone. 


122 


MRS. DINERS JEWELS. 


“ Why, damme,” he cried, “ there was one bracelet, 
I tell you, that I would not have taken a thousand 
guineas for; not because it was worth a thousand 
guineas, but because it had been in my mother’s fam- 
ily for three generations, damme,” etc., etc. 

Mr. Sparkes was also exceedingly wrathful on hear- 
ing that Mrs. Sparkes’s jewels, which he had asked 
Captain Sparshot to take care of, had been stolen. 

“ I ought to have kept the things myself,” he cried. 
“ I should have known how to take care of them, any- 
how. If the beasts had robbed me the lookout would 
have been mine.” 

“ I never took to the widow myself,” said Miss de 
la Taste, who had lost nothing. “ Mrs. Dines always 
made too much of her. I don’t believe she was a 
widow ; and as to her being a lord’s daughter — ” and 
here Miss de la Taste curled her lip and turned up 
her nose. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Dines lay in a fit upon the sofa, 
motionless and seemingly lifeless, her throat exposed 
to give her a chance of breathing, while the steward- 
ess damped her forehead with toilet vinegar, and the 
doctor looked on. The confusion was increased at 
this time by the ship’s carpenter hammering at the 
lock of the saloon door. The sound was as though 
the ship was in dry- dock and being caulked. The 
windows overlooking the quarter-deck were pale with 
the faces of ’tween-deck passengers eagerly staring in. 

About this moment it occurred to somebody to 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


123 


suggest that the thieves might have left more behind 
them in the safe than the Captain’s disordered mind 
had suffered him to perceive; on which Sparshot 
cried, “ Come and look for yourselves !” and the 
whole body of the passengers followed him into his 
cabin, leaving Mrs. Dines senseless upon the sofa, at- 
tended by the doctor and the stewardess. 

But the Captain had been only too accurate in his 
first gauging of the empty parcels and cases which 
the Major and his sister had left behind. Almost all 
that had been worth taking was gone. When the 
loss was clearly ascertained Sparshot locked the safe 
afresh and rushed on deck. He could not bear to 
hear the passengers charge him with gross neglect in 
placing the keys of his safe in a drawer, nor would he 
stay to learn that he was recklessly indifferent to the 
interests of those who sailed with him, that he had 
had no right to pay such marked attention, as every- 
body had noticed in him, to a common adventuress : 
inviting her to his cabin, showing her his mathemati- 
cal instruments, perhaps telling her where he kept his 
keys, and behaving, in short, almost as though he 
were not unwilling she should judge exactly how 
best to go to work. 

“ By heavens , 55 cried Mr. Du Boulay, crimson with 
passion and heat; “it 5 s enough to make one think 
that the Captain himself was an ally of the rascally 
pair !” 

But, fortunately for Mr. Du Boulay, Sparshot was 


124 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


out of hearing when this was said, nor was any one 
kind enough afterwards to repeat the odious and in- 
famous observation to him. 

The night had never at any hour been darker than 
it now was, nor the silence upon the ocean deeper, nor 
the calm profounder. The few lean stars w T hich had 
been visible at midnight were gone. The sea was 
full of fire ; the phosphorescent glow gushed, cloud- 
like, close under the surface in puffs of rich and brill- 
iant green whenever the small rolling of the vessel 
disturbed the water ; and at the time when Sparshot 
gained the deck a small corposant was burning at the 
main -topsail yard-arm, and its light lay in the sea 
under it like the reflection of a star. The drugged 
man at the wheel had been carried into the fore- 
castle, and the drugged second mate to his cabin. 
The chief mate stood near the helm sweeping the 
blackness of the sea with a night-glass. 

“ Is that you, Mr. Parr ?” said Captain Sparshot, go- 
ing close to him. 

“ Yes, sir . 55 

“ Have you been able to make out anything with 
your glass ?” 

“ Nothing whatever, sir . 55 

“ Step this way , 55 said Sparshot, and he and the 
mate walked a short distance forward, that they 
might converse out of earshot of the fellow who had 
been called aft to take the wheel. 

Captain Sparshot was never a man to condescend 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


125 


to his officers. It was his practice to keep his mates 
very much at arm’s-length. But now he wanted 
sympathy, now he wanted somebody to talk to, to ex- 
change ideas with, to get an opinion from. 

“ This has been a most vile and awful conspiracy, 
sir,” said he. 

“ I never heard of anything more audacious in my 
life,” answered Mr. Parr. 

“ They have pretty well cleared out the safe,” said 
the Captain ; “ got away with, I dare say, not less 
than thirty thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry.” 
Astonishment held the mate silent. “ I can see it all 
now,” continued Sparshot ; “ it is as you put it, sir ; 
those two people had heard that we were taking out 
some valuable jewels, and they hired cabins for no 
other purpose than to rob Mrs. Dines. Yet how the 
deuce could they tell where the jewels would be 
stowed ?” 

“ They would take the chance of finding that out, 
sir,” said the mate. 

“No doubt they concluded that the things would 
be given to me to take charge of,” continued the 
Captain. 

“ They’d know that the jewelry was on board the 
ship, anyway,” said Mr. Parr ; “ and the chap who 
called himself a major, helped by the young party 
who called herself a widow, meant to have them, let 
the articles have been stowed where they might.” 

“ And he’s got ’em !” exclaimed the Captain. “ Did 


126 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


any man ever hear of the like of such artfulness? 
They chartered that steam-yacht, of course. There’s 
more concerned in this robbery than those two. No 
cause to wonder now that that screw schooner should 
have kept company with us since we left Madeira. 
Lord, what a scheme ! think of the machinery of it 
and the chances against them ! Suppose we had lost 
sight of the schooner ?” 

“ They reckoned upon finding such weather as we 
have met with,” said the mate. “ The trick was to be 
done ’twixt Madeira and the Line — and done it is ! 
thirty thousand pounds’ worth !” and again speech 
was arrested in him by astonishment. 

Sparshot took a step to the skylight, and, looking 
down, perceived that Mrs. Dines had regained con- 
sciousness, and was sitting up sniffing at a smelling- 
bottle, and rolling her eyes as though she were mak- 
ing ready for another swoon, while she raised and 
dropped her unemployed hand in a manner whose 
suggestion of grief and temper was too strong to 
need accentuation from her face. A number of the 
passengers stood about her eagerly talking. Sparshot 
drew back on tiptoe. 

“ Three months, and perhaps more than three 
months, of association with that woman, sir !” he ex- 
claimed. “ What’s to be done, wliais to be done, I 
say ? Why, of course,” he cried, whipping out with a 
strong word, “ there is nothing to be done. But to 
think of all three months of it yet, with old Dines at 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


127 


the end — for such a thing to happen to a man who 
has held command for years, never losing so much as 
the value of a button — does it serve me right ? Never 
again, sir ! Never no more of extra civility because 
of a title, and — and— Lord bless me ! when I think of 
her wanting to learn navigation! 5 ’ he continued to 
mutter; but his disjointed sentences convej^ed no 
meaning to Mr. Parr. 

By this time the carpenter had succeeded in forcing 
open the saloon door, and shortly after he had irrep- 
arably injured the lock so far as shipboard artifice 
went, the steward found the key under the sofa. 
Captain Sparshot took advantage of the saloon door 
being opened to steal to his cabin by way of the 
quarter-deck, thus escaping the observation of the 
passengers who were assembled in the after -part of 
the cuddy, and when he had entered his cabin he 
closed the door, and fell to an examination of the 
work of the thief. 

But what was there to remark! No more than 
this: that the Major — if, indeed, the Major it was 
who had done this thing — had inserted the point of 
some such an instrument as a “ pricker,” as it is called 
at sea ; in other words, a small marline-spike, and with 
one or two heavy blows had torn and smashed the 
lock from its screws, leaving it warped and mutilated 
in the drawer, with the wood-work round about where 
it had been screwed in splinters. 

When was this done ? thought Sparshot, gazing at 


128 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


the drawer. When was the safe opened and the jew- 
elry taken? But there was no art in conjecture to 
fix the time. In all probability the Major had sneaked 
into the Captain’s berth not very long after dinner on 
the previous evening when Sparshot and the passen- 
gers had gone on deck, and he would certainly not 
have required more than ten minutes of undisturbed 
solitude to achieve all that he needed. 

The worthy, honest, good-natured dandy of a mer- 
chant skipper cursed himself afresh when he reflected 
that all unconsciously he had explained to Mrs. 
Wreathock how to rob the safe : first by opening the 
drawer and letting her see where the keys were, then 
by applying the keys and enabling her to observe how 
the safe was opened, then by disclosing the contents 
of the safe that she might accurately note the corner 
in which Mrs. Dines’s costly and magnificent necklace 
was deposited. Tes ! Sparshot had taught the Hon- 
orable Mrs. Wreathock something more than the art 
of navigating a ship through the ocean; and he 
grinned with wrath and shook his fist at the reflec- 
tion of his convulsed and purple face in a looking- 
glass as he stood meditating. 


CHAPTER XI. 


s.s. “sunflower.” 

The day broke in a dim coloring of lilac which 
changed into dingy silver, and the sun rose hot and 
misty in a sky like that of yesterday, a dull, thick, 
dusty blue, cloudless from sea-line to sea-line ; and the 
ocean spread away from either hand, the ship, with 
the same smoked and greasy face it had carried since 
the preceding noon. So motionless had the vessel 
hung all night that some floating stuff which the 
cook’s mate had tossed overboard on the previous 
evening lay within a biscuit toss of the vessel’s 
quarter. 

Sparshot was on deck when the sun rose. He di- 
rected a telescope narrowly and slowly round the 
horizon, then requested Mr. Parr to climb to the main- 
top-mast cross-trees with a glass. But Mr. Parr, after 
he had gained the cross-trees, beheld nothing to re- 
port. The risen sun had hurried the passengers into 
their respective cabins to attire themselves for the 
day that had now arrived, and the saloon was empty. 
Presently the ship’s doctor, Mr. Wilkinson, came on to 
the poop. 

“ Well, sir?” said Sparshot. 

9 


130 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


“Mr. Sampson and the other man have come to, 
sir,” said Mr. Wilkinson. “ They are both horribly 
sick, and will have to lie by for some time.” 

“Has Mr. Sampson got his senses?” demanded 
Sparshot. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ And what’s his story ?” 

“Why, that Major Stopford-Creake came up to him 
at one bell in the middle watch this morning, and 
offered him a cigar and some liqueur which he carried 
in a flask ; Mr. Sampson took a sup of the liqueur, 
and soon afterwards all recollection departed from 
him.” 

“ Then that scoundrel Major, I suppose,” said Spar- 
shot, “ stepped aft to the wheel, and dosed the helms- 
man with his liqueur.” And here he employed some 
strong language while he inquired of the doctor what 
right Mr. Sampson had to smoke cigars and drink 
liqueur with the passengers in his watch on deck. 

“ He’s had his lesson,” said Mr. Wilkinson. “ He 

d s all gentlemanly majors. He’ll drink no more 

liqueurs.” 

“ What was the drug — laudanum ?” 

“ Something that must have been swifter in its 
operations than laudanum,” answered the doctor, 
“ which, moreover, Mr. Sampson would have tasted. 
I suspect cocculus indicusP 

The question Sparshot was about to put was inter- 
rupted by the appearance of Mrs. Dines, who rose 


DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME I HA YE LOST THEM DIAMONDS FOR GOOD ? 





w *> ' wr* *. • r..;r •. ... • 


* 
















































MRS. DINES ? S JEWELS. 


131 


through the companion - hatch with her usually 
blowzed face pale and half as long again as it com- 
monly was, and her eyelids sore with weeping. The 
doctor hurried away. 

“ This is a hideous business, madam,” said Sparshot. 

“ You may call it what you like,” said Mrs. Dines. 
“ I want my property. I gave it to you to keep, and 
you are answerable for it. Gimme my necklace 
which cost Mr. Dines nearly three-and-twenty thou- 
sand pound ’ard money ;” and she extended her hand 
as though Captain Sparshot had the necklace in his 
pocket, while she placed her left fist upon her hip, and 
dropped her head on one side, her whole posture be- 
ing so menacing that it reminded Sparshot of the at- 
titudes the ladies of the slums and blind alleys put 
themselves into when they enter upon one of those 
arguments which commonly end in hair-pulling. No- 
body would \have recognized in this enraged figure 
the obliging, vulgar, good-natured Mrs. Dines of the 
voyage down to this time. 

“ How can I give you your necklace ?” said the Cap- 
tain. “ It is on board a fast steamer already many 
leagues below the horizon, and bound to — to — the 
devil, I hope,” said he. 

“ Do you mean to tell me I have lost them diamonds 
for good ?” cried Mrs. Dines. 

“ I wish I could say No to that !” exclaimed Spar- 
shot. 

Mrs. Dines breathed short, and the Captain drew 


132 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


back a step, conceiving by her manner of opening and 
shutting her hands, as though she were testing the 
strength of her fingers and nails, that she was about 
to rush at him. Instead, however, of rushing at him, 
she tossed her hands to her face and wept most mis- 
erably. But when this fit of weeping was passed she 
attacked the Captain afresh, commanded him the in- 
stant a breath of wind should come to turn the ship’s 
head round and sail for Madeira ; and if nothing was 
to be heard of the yacht and the two horrid thieves at 
the island, to proceed straight to England to enable 
her to send the police after them. “For, make no 
mistake,” cried she, wagging her forefinger at Spar- 
shot, “that necklace ain’t going to be lost through 
your carelessness. You favored that widder — I know 
you did; I watched you unbeknown; you was all 
smiles and civility to her. What right had you to 
take her to your cabin ? Did you ever show her my 
necklace without asking my leave? Who’s to say 
you didn’t? And, oh, the sinful, wicked folly of 
lockin’ up the keys of the safe in an old wooden 
drawer !” 

And so she stormed on, growing more and more 
vulgar as her mood grew more and more intemperate, 
until Sparshot, unable to endure the insults she shout- 
ed at him in the hearing of Mr. Parr and the man at 
the wheel and a number of the ’tween-deck passengers 
who had crowded up the poop-ladders to watch the 
quarrel, after contemptuously looking up and down 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


133 


her shapeless figure four or five times, turned upon 
his heel and went below. 

At the breakfast-table little was said ; Sparshot sat 
sulky and scowling. Mrs. Dines had declined to oc- 
cupy her chair on his right, and had taken a seat at 
the table at whose head the mate sat. By this time 
she had exhausted her temper and her threats, and 
did little more than fan herself, occasionally twisting 
her head towards the Captain with an expression of 
rage and misery in her face. The other passengers — 
those, at all events, who had been plundered — had 
talked themselves into a common -sense view of the 
situation. It was clearly not in the power of Captain 
Sparshot to recover the stolen property, and they left 
the poor fellow to sulk over his plate of cold ham and 
cup of coffee, or gaze with a deprecatory scowl around 
the table, and particularly at Mrs. Dines, contenting 
themselves with discoursing upon the prolonged calm, 
the intolerable heat, and matters of that sort. Before 
Mr. Parr had finished his breakfast Sparshot had gone 
on deck and was calling to him. 

“ Did that Major and the widow bring any luggage 
on board ?” inquired the Captain. 

“ I’ll inquire, sir.” 

“Break out whatever there may be belonging to 
them in the hold, and tell the steward to overhaul the 
cabins they occupied and report to me.” 

This order was forthwith executed. Among the 
passengers’ heavy luggage stowed away below there 


134 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


was found a large and somewhat handsome trunk or 
box with the words “ Hon ble - Mrs. Wreathock ” paint- 
ed in white letters upon the lid. Mr. Parr informed 
the Captain that it was locked, and the Captain de- 
sired the mate to tell the carpenter to prize the lid 
open. The box contained nothing but a number of 
bags filled with pebbles called shingle, on the top of 
which was packed a quantity of compressed hay or 
straw. The steward, after searching the cabins the 
couple had occupied, reported the discovery of a 
couple of plain portmanteaux containing wearing ap- 
parel, together with divers necessary articles for the 
toilet, some boots and shoes, and the like. The Major 
and his sister had indeed gone to sea very poorly 
equipped as regards baggage; whence, of course, it 
was understood that they had not contemplated mak- 
ing a passage that should extend very far south of 
Madeira. 

“How on earth would they have managed for 
clothes — how the dickens would they presently have 
made shift to appear at the table and on deck,” said 
Sparshot to his chief officer, “if the steamer had en- 
tirely lost sight of us ?” 

“They never could have bargained for that, sir,” 
said the mate ; “ it could not have entered into their 
calculations. They were not sailors, and didn’t think 
of it.” 

Nevertheless these and kindred speculations, togeth- 
er with Mrs. Dines’s insults, the realization of the enor- 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


135 


mous loss she and the other ladies had sustained, and 
the memory of the passengers’ outspokenness when 
the robbery was first discovered, amply accounted for 
the face of bewilderment and temper which Sparshot 
carried about with him during the morning ; for his 
sullen dodging of every passenger who attempted to 
accost him, and for his frequent employment of nau- 
tical terms when he spoke to Mr. Parr about the sec- 
ond mate, and the midnight flight of the Major and 
the widow, and the great heat and the breathless calm. 

It was some time shortly before three o’clock that 
afternoon — when not so much as a cat’s-paw of air 
shaded a hand’s-breadth of the slimy green surface slug- 
gishly winding into the haze of the junction of ocean 
and sky — that the smoke of a steamer was descried in 
the north-west. There was nothing remarkable in the 
smoke of a steamer showing upon the horizon. The 
third officer of the ship, a young man named Pinnager, 
who was keeping a lookout for Mr. Sampson until the 
effects of the dram of Benedictine should have worn 
off, levelled a glass at the distant smoke, and then 
went on pacing the deck. But the column of smoke 
enlarged ; the fibrine line of it grew black and more 
defined ; and presently, when Mr. Pinnager directed 
the telescope at it for the second time, he made out 
the two masts in one of a schooner-rigged steamer 
heading direct for the Southern Cross. 

By this time the attention of those passengers who 
were on deck had been taken by the approaching 


136 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


steamer, and they gazed with interest, for she prom- 
ised a break in the profound monotony of the day ; 
there would probably be the entertainment of an ex- 
change of signals ; probably the steamer would pass 
within hail, and in any case there would be the re- 
freshing spectacle of an object in motion. 

It was not very long after the third mate had first 
caught sight of the smoke that the hull of the vessel, 
whose speed was manifestly some ten or twelve knots 
in the hour, rose above the edge of the ocean. Young 
Mr. Pinnager took a long look at her through the 
glass, then very quietly left the poop, and knocked 
upon the door of the Captain’s cabin. 

“ Come in !” called out Sparshot. 

Mr. Pinnager entered, cap in hand. The Captain 
was waiting. 

“ The steamer that kept us company since Madeira,” 
said Mr. Pinnager, “ has hove in sight again, and is ap- 
proaching us fast.” 

The Captain stared idly at him for a moment or 
two, and exclaimed, “ Are you sure ?” 

“ Perfectly sure, sir ; I made sure before reporting 
her.” 

Sparshot put on his cap, and rushing on deck, picked 
up the glass, looked, and cried out, “ Yes, she is our 
Madeira friend !” 

The excitement now was even greater than it had 
been when it was discovered that the Major and the 
widow had left the ship, and that the safe was plun- 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


137 


dered. The news got wind as if by magic. The fore- 
castle was crowded by the ship’s company and ’tween- 
deck passengers staring as one man at the approach- 
ing vessel. Captain Sparshot and his chief officer 
posted themselves right aft on the ship’s quarter, and 
by their demeanor gave Mrs. Dines and the Sparkes, 
and the Du Boulays and the rest of the passengers 
clearly to understand that not a syllable was to be 
addressed to them, that they were not for an instant 
to be intruded upon, until the intentions of the steam- 
er were known. She was indeed most unmistakably 
the same screw schooner that had kept company with 
the Southern Cross down to the preceding day. She 
rolled lightly as she came along with a lift of white 
foam at her cut- water, and a mile of iridescent ribbon- 
like wake astern of her. She was schooner-rigged, 
her yards very square, her white canvas stowed with 
the precision of a man-of-war. She headed directly 
for the Southern Cross , and by a quarter past four she 
was lying abreast of the ship within easy speaking dis- 
tance, with a group of seamen in her bows gazing at 
the Australian liner, and a squarely-built man in a blue 
cloth jacket, white drill trousers and canvas shoes, 
upon her bridge. 

“ Ship ahoy !” shouted the squarely-built man from 
the steamer’s bridge. 

“ Holloa !” responded Sparshot, with a flourish of his 
arm. 

“I have something very important to communicate,” 


188 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


cried the squarely -built man, “and wish to see the 
master of that ship aboard my .vessel.” 

“ Will you not come aboard me ?” shouted Sparshot. 

“ No, sir,” returned the other. “ I want to see the 
master here.” 

“ I will send my chief officer,” bawled Sparshot. 

“ I will only communicate with the captain,” cried 
the sqarely-built man ; “ he may come aboard with an 
armed boat’s crew if he is in doubt.” 

Captain Sparshot contemptuously tossed his arm. 

“ Man my gig, sir,” said he to Mr. Parr. 

The gig hanging astern was lowered, manned by 
five stout seamen ; Sparshot entered her, and was pull- 
ed aboard the steamer. He easily climbed the low 
side of the yacht, and was received at the gangway 
by the squarely-built man. 

Sparshot’s mind had been so unhinged by the ca- 
lamitous and depressing incidents of the day and night, 
that it was scarcely surprising he should send a hur- 
ried, anxious glance along the deck of the little ves- 
sel, scarce knowing, perhaps, but that he might behold 
a long twenty-four pounder, ill-concealed by a tarpau- 
lin, on her forecastle, and a crew of men much more 
suggestive by apparel, ear-rings, and color of skin, of 
the West Indian waters than of Bugsby’s Beach and 
the Isle of Dogs. 

“ I have the pleasure of addressing the master of 
the Southern Cross ?” said the squarely-built man, in a 
strong salt voice. 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


139 


“You have, sir ; Captain Sparshot, at your service. 
What vessel is this ?” 

“The yacht Sunflower — Captain Dennis Brine. I 
am Captain Brine, sir; and a nice quandary I’m in. 
There is a man cut his throat below. But I wasn’t to 
be stopped, sir ! What ! stand to be run in as a con- 
federate, and to sarve out the rest of my natural life 
in jail — me who was chartered for a job that mightn’t, 
it’s true, be tarmed what you call strictly honest ; but 
compared with the true meaning of this herrand — ” 
he dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand, 
and raising his voice into a roar with the excitement 
that worked in him, cried, “ had they had fifty throats 
between ’em to cut, the slitting of every blooming one 
of them wouldn’t ha’ stopped me from doing what’s 
right and proper.” 

“ What’s all this about ?” exclaimed Sparshot, stead- 
fastly surveying Captain Brine with eyes slowly 
brightening with hope and expectation. 

“ I’ll tell you the yarn right away off, Captain Spar- 
shot,” said Brine, speaking hoarsely, strongly, and rap- 
idly. “ This yacht was placed by her owner in the 
hands of an agent dwelling in the City of London for 
to hire out to any parties that might apply. The 
agent sends for me. ‘ Brine,’ he says, ‘ the Sunflower 
has been hired by the month by a gentleman w r ho has 
paid down a deposit. Now turn to, Brine , 5 he says, 
says he, ‘ get a crew together as fast as you can, and 
fill your bunkers. Be on board on such and such a 


140 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


day,’ says he, 4 when the gent will visit the yacht, and 
you can take his instructions as to victualling her and 
the likes of that.’ "Well, sir, to cut this part, the gent 
came down to the yacht where she was then lying off 
Erith, and what do you think he says ? 4 My name,’ 
says he, 4 is Major the Honorable Sebastian Stopford- 
Creake, and my father,’ says he , 4 is Lord Horncastle ; 
but don’t let the agent know who I am,’ says he , 4 and 
if ye want to know why , you’ll find out in a minute.’ 
He gives me a good cigar, and thus proceeds : 4 There 
is a young lady, says he ,’ 4 who’s a fortune, and who’s 
going out to Australia in a ship called the Southern 
Gross . She is consigned to the care of the captain of 
the vessel, Captain Sparshot, who has received strict 
orders to keep a sharp eye upon her.’ ” 

44 God bless my heart !” ejaculated Sparshot. 

‘ 4 4 She’s being sent out,’ this Major says to me,” 
continued Captain Brine, 44 4 to be married to a gent in 
Australia. She hates his name; she says the very 
thought of him is poison to her. Captain Brine,’ he 
goes on , 4 this young lady and me are in love ; we pas- 
sionately worship the ground each other’s foot treads 
on,’ says he , 4 and we would elope in this country if we 
could, but the lady’s friends won’t give us a chance. 
Now what I intend to do,’ says the Major , 4 is to hire 
this yacht for the purpose of running away with the 
young lady from the ship.’ ” 

Captain Brine paused, pulled off his cap and wiped 
his forehead. 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


141 


“Keep all on — I am following you — don’t stop 
speaking !” cried Sparshot, in a voice that trembled 
with eagerness and astonishment. 

Captain Brine resumed : “ ‘ I shall want you,’ says 
this Major, ‘to proceed to Madeira, and there await 
the arrival of the Southern Cross , which I have ascer- 
tained calls at that island. I then propose,’ says he, 
‘ that you sail from the island when the ship sails, and 
that you keep her company, taking care, if you can 
manage it, not to excite suspicion by so doing. There 
are sure,’ says he, ‘to be plenty of dark, quiet nights 
to fall in with ’twixt Madeira and the equator, and on 
one of them nights I’ll contrive that a rocket shall be 
sent up to give you notice that we are ready, so that 
you may bring your steamer as near to the Southern 
Cross as she can approach in the dark without being 
observed ; you will then send a boat to lie off the ship 
— I am allowing,’ says he, ‘that it is a still, calm night ; 
if it ain’t, of course I shouldn’t signal — you’ll send 
a boat, and she will receive me and the lady, and 
that’s the object,’ says he, ‘ for which I have hired this 
yacht.’ ” 

“ I suppose you know — ” here interrupted Sparshot. 

“ Let me finish my yarn, sir, begging your pardon,” 
exclaimed Captain Brine; “you’ll find I pretty nigh 
well know everything. I was somewhat confused and 
surprised — but times had been hard ; I was in want of 
a job — I thought the matter over while I looked at 
him ; and after all, thought I, his doings will be no 


142 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


consarn of mine so long as they don’t involve me in 
anything rascally ; and though I’m no friend to elop- 
ing, as it’s termed, preferring all things ship-shape for 
my own part, still, a runaway business of this sort 
wasn’t to be reckoned criminal, as the saying is. And 
so, after a spell of thinking, I agreed to carry out his 
wishes, never perhaps seriously believing they was to 
be compassed ; for how was I to make sure of keeping 
yonder ship in sight ? and how was he to calculate on 
just such a night as last night was a drawing round to 
help him. But to cut this, sir, he told me to victual 
the yacht, and gave me a check for the money I want- 
ed, drawed out in the name of Richard Montgomery, 
which was duly honored. Several times he visited 
the yacht before I sailed, and we consarted our plans. 
I boarded your ship at Madeira, and asked for to see 
the young lady just out of curiosity, but of course she 
wasn’t visible. And the rest, Captain Sparshot, you 
pretty well know.” 

“ Where’s the jewelry ?” said Sparshot. 

“ In that chart-house,” answered the other, pointing 
to a small structure with large windows abaft the 
bridge. 

“ Is it all there ?” 

“All there, sir; all I found, anyhow, and, as I be- 
lieve, all they brought aboard.” 

“ Let me see it,” said Sparshot ; and Captain Brine 
led the way to the yacht’s chart-house. He opened 
a locker and produced the jewelry, the v T hole of it 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


143 


wrapped up in a new piece of drill. Captain Sparshot 
opened the case containing Mrs. Dines’s diamonds, and 
in the case lay the costly and beautiful gems sparkling 
gloriously. He examined the rest of the parcels, and 
found that nothing was missing. Every object that 
had been stolen, down to the little morocco case, 
smaller than a man’s thumb, containing a pair of 
diamond hoops for the ears belonging to Mrs. du Bou- 
% lay, was before him, and all was once again in his 
possession. He grasped Captain Brine by the hand. 

“ You are as a brother to me,” he cried; “a broth- 
er sailor, Captain Brine, a true man, and may G-od 
bless you for the relief of mind you’ve given me !” 

“ A sailor I am, Captain Sparshot,” answered Brine ; 
“ but an honest man first of all — at least I try to be, 
and nothing else much signifies. But stop,” he con- 
tinued, “ till I tell you how I found out the true er- 
rand of the parties below. They came aboard in the 
yacht’s boat. A light was shown when the man who 
called himself Major dropped his signal overboard, 
and the boat headed straight for the schooner. The 
parties went into the cabin, the boat was hoisted 
aboard, and the yacht put full speed ahead, the course 
due north, for my instructions were that our desti- 
nation would not be settled till the runaways were 
aboard the yacht, him as called himself the Major 
not knowing in what part of the sea we might find 
ourselves when that happened. About half an hour 
after they had arrived I went below, not to seek 


144 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


them, for I reckoned that him as called himself the 
Major would send for me when he wanted me, but to 
shift my shoes which pinched me. I thought to find 
the parties in the living room, ’stead of which they’d 
withdrawn into a berth ’longside the one I had been 
using. I entered my berth softly, not wishing them 
to know that I was there, lest they might consider it 
a liberty for me to be in the cabin at all. I could 
hear their voices plain, and I hadn’t stood listening a 
minute when I tell ye, Captain Sparshot, I clean for- 
got my corns and never gave my tight shoes another 
thought. He was telling her how he’d done it ; how 
he had forced the lock of the drawer of your table, 
and the funk he was in when, while he was actually 
pulling out the contents of the safe, some one knocked 
at the door of your cabin, sir, whoever it was getting 
no answer and going away. He filled his pockets, 
put the key of the safe back, and crept out, nobody 
obsarving him.” 

“ What was the hour ?” cried Sparshot, whose nos- 
trils were large, and whose eyes were on fire and 
whose face was full of blood with the emotions ex- 
cited by Brine’s narrative. 

“ I couldn’t gather,” answered Brine ; “ but I allow 
it took place some time last evening. But to cut this, 
sir, I heard enough to convince me that these parties 
were not a pair of runaway sweethearts, but a brace 
of audacious swindlers fresh from a tremendous job 
of plunder with the booty upon them, for they talked 


t 



HE HAS KILLED HIMSELF!”’ 

















































































































































. 




. 









































































































































































































































































































































MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


145 


much of them diamonds,” said he, pointing to the 
case containing Mrs. Dines’s necklace, “and I heard 
him as called himself the Major say that, though 
they would have to dispose of the stones separate, he 
wouldn’t take fifteen thousand pound for that night’s 
work. On this I softly creeps out, and going on deck 
calls the mate and the engineer and tells them all that 
I’d heard. I then ordered the mate to call the men 
quietly down into the forecastle, and explain the true 
nature of the errand for which all hands of us had 
been engaged. We needed to think what was best to 
be done, and though I had made up my mind, it re- 
quired a little reflection before acting right away off. 
I made a note of the bearings of your ship, and I told 
the engineer to slow down, but not so to slacken the 
speed as to render the alteration in the motion of the 
engines noticeable by the parties below. I was pretty 
sure that such an audacious villain as that there Major 
had tarned out to be would never go unarmed, and 
much time was lost in our manoeuvring to secure him 
without standing to be shot. We managed it at last. 
At five o’clock this morning he came out of his berth, 
and called to me through the cabin skylight to step 
below. The lady was sitting at the table. The Major 
begins to talk to me of making for Boston. On this 
I fetches the engineer, as if to consult with him in the 
Major’s presence upon the stock of coal aboard ; then, 
at a signal, the engineer and me threw ourselves upon 
the Major, and at the same moment the mate comes 
10 


146 


MRS. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


running below. The woman shrieked out and laid 
hold of me with the strength of a man. We secured 
the Major and searched him, and sure enough, just as 
I had expected, found a loaded revolver upon him. I 
told him that I had found out the true object for 
which he had hired the yacht, and locked him up in 
one of the berths, leaving the lady loose to chuck her- 
self overboard if she liked ; and on searching the cab- 
in they had been in when I overheard them I found 
the jewelry. I should have picked ye up early in 
the day, Captain, but either my bearings was wrong 
or the chap at the wheel hadn’t steered the course I 
had given him ; and you have cost us a bit of a hunt 
since about eight o’clock this morning.” 

“ But did you tell me this Major had cut his throat ?” 
cried Sparshot, who had followed Brine’s narrative 
with breathless attention. 

“ Aye, sir. The lady had been alone all day — sitting 
at the cabin table without lifting her head, never tak- 
ing no notice of me when I looked in — sitting as mo- 
tionless as one of them graven images which Chris- 
tians are ordered not to worship. This afternoon, all 
on a sudden, she gave a dreadful scream. I rushed 
below and found her pointing to the door of her cab- 
in, where her pal lay locked up. She cried out, 6 He 
has hilled himself /’ That was all, sir; she never 
spoke again. I unlocked and opened the door, and 
found the Major on the deck with a fearful wound in 
his throat and the blood running from it like water 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


147 


from a ship’s pump when ye man it. He was stone 
dead. The woman took one look, went to the table, 
sat down again, and there she has been ever since, 
without life or motion. Ye can see her by stepping 
to the skylight.” 


148 


MRS. DINES’S JEWELS. 


CHAPTER XII. 

CAPTAIN BRINE’S REWARD. 

Captain Sparshot slowly pocketed the several par- 
cels of jewelry, thrusting one in here and another in 
there. The case containing Mrs. Dines’s jewels was a 
tight fit, but there was plenty of room in his pockets 
for the rest of the precious stuff. Captain Brine stood 
looking on while Sparshot was thus occupied. The 
calm was still as dead as ever it had been. Within 
easy speaking distance of the yacht lay the Southern 
Cross , wfith the red light of the westering sun glanc- 
ing off her spars and glossy rigging as she slightly 
rolled. All the first-class passengers were assembled 
on the poop, and they stared almost continually, 
whether through telescopes or binocular glasses or 
with the naked eye, at the steamer, wondering what 
was happening on board of her, and whether the jew- 
elry was safe, and whether the Major and his sister 
would be conveyed to the ship in irons ; and they also 
wondered in what part of the vessel they would be 
imprisoned when they arrived, and what sort of fig- 
ures they would cut in the view of the crowd of peo- 
ple assembled upon the decks of the Southern Cross 
when they were handed up through the gangway. 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


149 


Captain Brine kept silence until Captain Sparshot 
had pocketed the jewelry. He then said : 

“ There is one thing I wish to point out, sir — don’t 
think that I want to represent myself and my men as 
having any sort of claim upon you and them who 
have been robbed. It’s entirely a matter for your 
own kindness, and for the views your passengers may 
choose to take of this here traverse. The person we’d 
been told we were to look to for our money is dead. 
Being dead nothing more need be said about him, 
good nor bad. But his death leaves a matter of two 
or three hundred pound owing — ” 

“ Enough,” interrupted Sparshot. “ Say no more, 
Captain Brine ; leave the rest to me. If the recovery 
of these goods,” he said, smiting his pockets, “ isn’t 
worth a big reward, you shall have them back again.” 

The two captains, quitting the chart-room, walked 
to a skylight upon the yacht’s quarter-deck, and 
looked down. 

The frames of the skylight stood wide open ; Cap- 
tain Sparshot peered, and beheld the Honorable Mrs. 
Wreathock seated beside a table in the lifeless posture 
that had been described to him by Captain Brine. 
Her cheek was supported by her hand, her elbow by 
the table; her eyes were rooted to the deck, and 
though she must have been perfectly sensible of the 
presence of the two captains just above, she never 
stirred. 

“ Is her heart broke, d’ye think ?” hoarsely whis- 


150 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


pered Captain Sparshot, touched by the anguish of 
mind that was suggested by the woman’s posture ; 
touched also by the memory of her sweetness and her 
gentleness, and her beauty and her quality ; for beau- 
tiful and of high degree the honest mariner had truly 
considered her to have been. “Is her heart broke, 
d’ye think ?” said he. 

“ God He knows,” answered Captain Brine. “ I’ll 
hail her.” He put his head into the skylight. “ Mad- 
am,” he softly called. 

She looked up with a mere flash of white face and 
a swift, blind sort of glance, instantly resuming her 
former posture. 

“Come below and see the body,” said Captain 
Brine. 

But Sparshot’s head shook as though to a shudder, 
and, pinching Brine’s sleeve, he drew him away from 
the skylight. 

“ I’ve got the jewels,” said he, “ and I want now to 
go wholly clear of this job. I don’t wish to receive 
that unfortunate woman aboard my ship. You can 
guess why. They might force me to hand her over 
to justice on our arrival, and I am for letting her 
be — lam for letting the poor thing be,” he add- 
ed, clinching his fist and swinging it impetuously 
through the air. “ I don’t doubt she was under the 
thumb of the man who is dead. You’ll carry her 
home, Captain Brine, and put her quietly ashore and 
let her go her way. T’other was the thief. She is a 


MES. DINEs’s JEWELS. 


151 


lone woman, and who can tell how much she has been 
wronged by the man who called himself an Honor- 
able and a Major ?” 

Captain Brine mused while he tapped the deck with 
the toe of his boot. 

“Well, Captain,” said he, “be it as you say. The 
lady is a countrywoman, I allows.” 

“ She is” 

“ Then she can scarce fail to have acquaintances in 
England. She shall go ashore quietly, as you say, if 
she don’t die on my hands before we get home. All 
the same, it’s a blooming mess for a man to find him- 
self in. I’m thinking of myself. I’m sorry for the 
lady, but I’ll be glad to find my old friend Brine,” he 
exclaimed, with an odd, hard smile, “ muck’d up in 
any sort of seafaring job rather than this. There is 
the body to bury ; then is there anything in scrapers 
to get that stain out of the planks ? And, again, 
what’s a man to do with a lonely woman upon his 
hands, a woman who won’t eat and who won’t drink, 
and who won’t go to bed, nor leave the table, nor 
come on deck. It’s what I call a quandary. Has she 
got any duds?” 

“Clothes enough,” answered Captain Sparshot. 
“ They shall be packed and put in the boat. Come 
you now aboard with me that the passengers may 
hear what’s expected of them.” 

Captain Brine called to his mate that he was going 
on board the Southern Cross , and bade him give an 


152 


MRS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


eye to the cabin ; he then followed Sparshot into the 
gig, and the two skippers were put aboard the Aus- 
tralian liner. The ’tween-deck passengers came hur- 
rying from the forecastle to the quarter-deck to see 
them arrive, and the saloon passengers advanced in a 
body to the break of the poop in expectation of Cap- 
tain Sparshot instantly giving them all the news he 
had to communicate. But Sparshot, instead of mount- 
ing to the poop, entered the saloon with Captain 
Brine ; and first he ordered the steward to pack up 
the clothes and other effects of Major Stopford-Creake 
and Mrs. Wreathock, and hand the baggage into the 
boat that lay alongside ; and he then told the man to 
go on deck and give his compliments to the passen- 
gers, one and all, and request the pleasure of their 
presence in the saloon. 

The first to arrive was Mrs. Dines. In a very few 
moments the whole of the passengers were in the sa- 
loon, with Captain Brine convulsing his figure with 
sea bows, as Sparshot pronounced his name to one 
and then another of the people. Hardly was this 
ceremony of introduction ended when Mrs. Dines 
cried out, “ Is my necklace safe ?” 

“ It is, ma’am,” answered Sparshot, stiffly. “ I have 
it here,” and he struck his breast with the flat of his 
hand. 

“Oh, you dear, good creature!” shrieked Mrs. 
Dines; and falling back in her chair she uttered 
scream after scream of hysterical laughter, making so 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


153 


much noise and causing so much confusion that Spar- 
shot could make no progress with the business he had 
in hand until the steward had silenced the lady by 
almost forcing her to swallow a glass of brandy-and- 
water. 

Sparshot then looking round him, addressed the 
passengers ; and first he made all those who were in- 
terested easy in their minds, by stating that every 
article of the plundered jewelry had been handed to 
him by Captain Brine, a man he was proud to call a 
sailor, a man who (with his — Brine’s — permission) he 
should be proud to number among the most esteemed 
and valued of his friends. He then repeated Captain 
Brine’s story as it had been related to himself, told 
his hearers that the man who had represented him- 
self as Major the Honorable Sebastian Stopford- 
Creake lay dead with his throat cut — a self-inflicted 
wound — in the cabin of the yacht he had chartered 
with a view to one of the most audacious robberies 
ever contemplated and attempted. He also bluntly 
and briefly informed them that the Honorable Mrs. 
Wreathock would remain on board the Sunflower . 

Many murmurs of horror escaped the passengers 
when they heard that the Major had cut his throat, 
for ship-board life brings people very close together ; 
it establishes what may be termed an intimacy of ac- 
quaintance that is impossible on shore ; Major Stop- 
ford - Creake had been thought much of and made 
much of ; his real or fictitious claim of social distinc- 


154 


MBS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


tion had accentuated the familiarity of his presence, 
and it grieved a few and shocked all to learn that the 
unhappy man had cut his throat. 

“ What’s to become of his sister?” said Mrs. Dines, 
whose unnatural hilarity had been extinguished by the 
brandy-and-water. 

Sparshot made no answer. He pulled the various 
articles of jewelry from his pocket, placed them in a 
heap before him on the table, and then in a steady 
voice and w r ith a slight frown, he begged the passen- 
gers to fix their eyes upon the jewels and ask them- 
selves this question : “ How is such magnificent hon- 
esty as is illustrated by the restoration of this heap of 
jewels — worth in the rough, say, from thirty-five to 
forty thousand pounds — how is such splendid honesty 
to be rewarded ? By thanks ? d’ye say by thwriks , la- 
dies and gentlemen ? Surely not.” And then, after 
pausing, he told them how Captain Brine was situat- 
ed ; how that now the Major was dead, without, prob- 
ably, leaving enough behind him to purchase the value 
of a farthing’s worth of silver spoons, Captain Brine, 
his officers, and his men, would return home without 
receiving a penny-piece of the wages they had signed 
for. 

“ I ask to hear no more talk,” cried Mrs. Dines, at 
this point. “ Open that case, Captain Sparshot, and 
let me see my necklace for myself.” 

Captain Sparshot handed the case to her. She 
opened it and gazed, at the flashing diamonds. 


MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


155 


“ Call Pittar, somebody,” she cried. Pittar arrived. 
“ Fetch me my check-book,” said Mrs. Dines ; “ like- 
wise ink and a pen. You’ll find my check-book in 
my jewel-case, and the keys in the right-hand corner 
of the portmanteau with the big ‘ D ’ on it.” 

The check-book was brought, and Mrs. Dines, who 
was inexpert with her pen, laboriously made out a 
draft upon an Australian bank. 

“ If that will do,” she exclaimed, as she passed it to 
Captain Brine ; “ you deserve it, I am sure.” 

Captain Brine read the check slowly : read the date, 
the name of the bank, the signature, the amount. 

“ It’s a noble gift, lady,” he said, bowing to her ; “ I 
thank you for it from my heart — truly I do — and in 
the name of my mate and crew, I thank you.” 

“ Mrs. Dines, what have you given ?” asked Mr. du 
Boulay. 

“ Five hundred pounds,” answered Mrs. Dines. 

Mrs. Sparkes made a face at her husband. Mr. du 
Boulay went to his cabin, and Mrs. Dines wrote a sec- 
ond check which she folded and held. 

“ Pass the ink, please,” said Mr. du Boulay, return- 
ing with a check -book in his hand, and he filled up 
a draft, payable to Captain Brine, for one hundred 
pounds. 

“ I wish I could afford more,” said Mr. Sparkes, 
handing Captain Brine a Bank of England note for 
fifty pounds. 

Twenty minutes later the captain of the yacht had 


156 


MKS. DINES’s JEWELS. 


drunk to the health of the passengers of the Southern 
Cross , had shaken hands all round, and was walking 
to the gangway accompanied by Captain Sparshot. 
But while he stood at the gangway exchanging a final 
word with Sparshot, Mrs. Dines came out of the sa- 
loon and approached him. 

“ Here, Captain Brine,” she exclaimed ; “ the wom- 
an’s alone, and may want a friend when you land her. 
Change it afore giving it to her that she mayn’t know 
who sent it.” 

She slipped a piece of folded paper into Captain 
Brine’s hand, and hurried back into the saloon. Brine 
opened the paper. “ A check for fifty pounds,” said 
he. 

Ten minutes later the Sunflower had started for her 
run home, with Captain Brine on the bridge flourish- 
ing his hat, his crew at the rail loudly cheering, and 
the red ensign rising and falling at her main topmast- 
head in graceful farewell of the becalmed Southern 
Cross . 

Captain Sparshot never thought to hear again of 
Mrs. Wreathock after the Sunflower had sunk behind 
the sea-line into the dusk of the evening in the north 
there. He would say that it was the same to his fan- 
cy as if she had died and gone the way of the Major, 
when once the yacht’s propeller had driven the little 
craft out of sight. 

Strangely enough, however, on his return from this 


MRS. DINES 5 S JEWELS. 


157 


same voyage, it happened that some matter of busi- 
ness called Sparshot from the East India Docks to 
Cornhill, and when leaving the railway station at 
Fenchurch Street his steps were arrested by a man 
who halted dead in front of him, with his hand out- 
stretched. It was Captain Brine. Sparshot, of 
course, instantly recognized him, and the two sea- 
men cordially shook hands. Sparshot had nearly 
an hour to spare; Brine, too, was at leisure; they 
repaired to an adjacent house of entertainment, and 
Sparshot ordered lunch for himself and Captain 
Brine. 

It will be supposed that their conversation ran almost 
wholly upon Mrs. Wreathock. And yet Captain Brine 
had not much to communicate. He told Sparshot that 
on his return to the yacht — that is to say, on his leav- 
ing the bridge to go below to look after Mrs. Wreath- 
ock, he found her in a swoon by the dead body of the 
Major. He called for help, placed her in a bunk in 
another cabin, and within the same hour his men 
dropped the body of the Major overboard. Mrs. 
Wreathock came to after a long spell of unconscious- 
ness ; but she refused all nourishment ; Brine believed 
that she intended to starve herself, and was at his 
wits’ ends to know how to deal with her. He sup- 
posed she might be friendless, that she was dreading 
her return to England; and thinking to put some 
heart into her he told her that one of the passen- 
gers had given him fifty pounds, which he would 


158 MRS. DXNEs’s JEWELS. 

hand to her when he cashed the check on their ar- 
rival. 

She broke silence for the first time since the yacht 
had steamed away from the Southern Cross , by ask- 
ing him to tell her who it was that had given him 
that money for her. He said that he was as good as 
under a promise not to tell ; she pleaded, and, unable 
to resist her, he answered, “ Mrs. Dines.” She hid her 
face and silently wept ; but after that time a change 
came over her. She ate and drank ; she allowed Brine 
to take her on deck ; she seemed grateful for the at- 
tention he showed her. 

He told her he was willing to land her at any 
port in England she chose to name, and her answer 
was that one port was the same as another. She 
never mentioned the name of the Major, never re- 
ferred to his death, or asked what had become of his 
body. Captain Brine tried to sound her as to her past, 
but the efforts of a rough seaman in that way, as he 
himself admitted, could not but be clumsy and ridicu- 
lous ; if ever he questioned her it was with too much 
bluntness, and all the time they were together he nev- 
er could extract one syllable of information as to her 
own or the Major’s past. 

The yacht arrived at Gravesend, and Mrs. Wreath- 
ock remained on board while Captain Brine went to 
London to negotiate the checks he had received. He 
returned and handed her fifty sovereigns ; her luggage 
was then put into a boat, she shook hands with Cap- 


SHE WENT ASHORE 




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MRS. DINES’ S JEWELS. 


159 


tain Brine, went ashore, and from that hour down to 
this moment of meeting with Captain Sparshot he had 
seen and heard no more of her. 

Entirely influenced by curiosity, Sparshot went to 
work on his own account, and called upon the mana- 
ger of the bank upon which the Major, in the name of 
Montgomery, had drawn the check which he gave to 
Captain Brine. To pursue the skipper’s researches 
would be to enter upon a long story ; enough if it is 
said here that by help of certain statements made to 
him by the manager of the bank he ascertained that 
the Major’s name was as he had signed it — Richard 
Montgomery ; that he was the son of a cavalry offi- 
cer, that he had enlisted when a young man, obtained 
a commission, and resigned on being proved guilty of 
some dishonorable act. 

Here the clew failed ; but Sparshot afterwards picked 
it up again by learning that Captain Montgomery had 
dwelt for some years in Boulogne-sur-Mer, from which 
place he had “ run,” heavily in debt, accompanied by 
a young lady who had been governess to a family 
with whose members he was intimate. This young 
lady was undoubtedly the so-called Honorable Mrs. 
Wreathock. 

How Captain Montgomery had obtained the money 
to enable him to deposit a considerable sum for the 
hire of the yacht, and to engage cabins for himself and 
his companion on board the Southern Cross , Sparshot 
could never learn. The worthy skipper was always 


160 


MRS. DINES S JEWELS. 


of opinion that the gallant captain had been backed, 
and that the inspiration of the audacious conspiracy 
was to be laid to the account of the newspaper para- 
graph which prefaces this unambitious recital of a 
strange ocean story. 


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BEMUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 


By Lew. Wallace. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50. Garfield 
Edition . Two Volumes. Twenty Full -page Pho- 
togravures. Over 1000 Illustrations as Marginal 
Drawings by William Martin Johnson. Crown 
8vo, Printed on Fine Super-calendered Plate-paper, 
Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, Bound in Silk and 
Gold, $7 00. (In a Gladstone Box.) 

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of 
this romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some of Mr. 
Wallace’s writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes 
described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of 
an accomplished master of style. — N. Y. Times. 

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at the 
beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and brilliant. . . . 
We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we witness a sea- 
fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman galley, domestic in- 
teriors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the tribes of the desert; pal- 
aces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman youth, the houses of pious 
families of Israel. There is plenty of exciting incident ; everything is ani. 
mated, vivid and glowing. — N. Y. Tribune. 

From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader’s interest 
will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by all 
one of the greatest novels of the day.— Boston Post. 

“ Ben-Hur ” is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong. 
Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is laid, 
and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to realize the 
nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman life at 
Antioch at the time of our Saviour’s advent. — Examiner, N. Y. 

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with un- 
wonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel 
and romance. — Boston Journal. 

One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and 
warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic 
chapters of history. — Indianapolis Journal. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

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